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Sporting Clube de Portugal (pron. IPA: ['spɔɾtĩg 'klub(ɨ) dɨ puɾtu'gaɫ], referred to coloquially as Sporting, Sporting CP or, erroneously, Sporting Lisbon, is a Portuguese sports club based in Lisbon. The club is particularly renowned for its football department. With more than 100,000 registered club members[1], Sporting is one of the most successful and popular sports clubs in Portugal. Its teams, athletes and supporters are often nicknamed Os Leões (English: The Lions).
Along with Benfica and FC Porto, Sporting is one of "The Big Three" sports clubs in Portugal. It is the club with the greatest number of medals won by its athletes in Olympic competitions, and the second most successful at the European level regarding the number of trophies won in every sport, after F.C. Barcelona.[citation needed]
[edit] History
The club's foundation was instigated by José Holtreman Roquette (José of Alvalade), with the financial support of his grandfather, Alfredo Augusto das Neves Holtreman, Viscount of Alvalade. The Viscount of Alvalade was the first President of Sporting Clube de Portugal. The club was established in 1902 as Sport Club de Belas, which became Campo Grande Sporting Club in 1904, and took its definitive name of Sporting Clube de Portugal in 1906.
Within Portugal, the Sporting Clube de Portugal is often referred to simply as "Sporting". Outside Portugal, the most commonly used designation for the club is "Sporting Lisbon" erroneously though. In the past the club has attempted (unsuccessfully) to shed this name, particularly through ex-president Sousa Cintra and his staff, in an effort to become known abroad by its correct name. Despite this, the non-Portuguese media still uses Sporting Lisbon (or equivalent) due to precedent (other accepted examples of English language alterations being Inter Milan, AC Milan and Bayern Munich) and to avoid confusion with other clubs such as Sporting Braga, Sporting Covilhã, Sporting Farense and Sporting Gijón, instead of using a more accurate name like Sporting Portugal.
[edit] Organization
Sporting is a multisports club, composed by many different competitive departments, including football, futsal, athletics and handball, among others. The football department is the largest in terms of budget and popularity. The other sports departments of the club (the ranks of which include Olympic winners and World Champions) are managed by specialized professionals according to each sport's specificity and have their own decision making bodies.
[edit] Football
Football is the most popular sport in Portugal and the Portuguese Football League the most important sports championship, where the top teams earn a place in the most demanding and profitable European football competitions - the European Champions League and the UEFA Cup. The club's football team has won 18 national championship titles, 15 national cups and the former Cup Winners' Cup in 1964.
Sporting has been a major contender in the Portuguese League since its inception. The club's football department has developed an increasingly professionalized profile which operates in an increasingly competitive environment in both Portugal and Europe. In 1998, the football department of the club was reorganized into a company and issued stock on the market. Since then Sporting - Sociedade Desportiva de Futebol, S.A.D. is a publicly traded company which is listed on the Euronext Lisbon stock exchange.
[edit] Facilities
[edit] Stadium
Sporting boasts a new stadium, Estádio José Alvalade, built for the 2004 European Football Championship. Sporting also has a world-class football training facility (Academia Sporting in Alcochete), which accommodated Portugal during the Euro 2004 competition, and has helped to produce some of the best Portuguese players, such as Luís Figo, Luís Nani, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ricardo Quaresma, among many others.
It was designed by Tomás Taveira and was classified by UEFA as a 5-star stadium, enabling it to host finals of major UEFA events. This stadium - originally projected to hold only 40,000 spectators at any given time - has a capacity of 52,000 and was acoustically engineered as a venue for major concerts. Its official opening was on 6 August 2003 when Sporting played and beat Manchester United 3-1. It also hosted the 2005 UEFA Cup final between Sporting and CSKA Moscow, which CSKA won 3-1.
The stadium was also one of the stadia that hosted matches during Euro 2004. There were five games played in Estádio José Alvalade, one of them being the semi-final between Portugal and The Netherlands, which Portugal won 2-1.
[edit] Sporting's youth academy
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Famous for its football youth academy system which features a range of well-equipped facilities and is one of the most renowned in the world, Sporting has continuously developed many world class footballers. Some of its most notable home-bred footballers include João Moutinho, Miguel Veloso, Yannick Djaló, Bruno Pereirinha, Rui Patrício, Adrien Silva, Daniel Carriço and Marco Caneira in the current squad, Paulo Futre (retired), Luís Figo (Inter Milan), Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani (Manchester United), as well as Luis Boa Morte (West Ham United). The long list of valuable players who developed their skills in the youth academy of the club, include other noted footballers such as Dani Carvalho (retired) who played for Ajax Amsterdam, former FC Barcelona player Ricardo Quaresma (who joined Inter Milan in 2008), Simão Sabrosa (Atlético de Madrid), Hugo Viana (Valencia) and Miguel (Valencia, although he only played for the youth squads, before moving to Estrela da Amadora). Sporting's youth academy was considered by Luiz Felipe Scolari (was Portugal's national coach, now Manages Chelsea FC) and José Pekerman (former Argentina national coach) as one of the best sports academies in the world. It was also the home training ground for the Portuguese national football team during Euro 2004. A great number of European clubs choose the Sporting's Academia for training in the off-season.
The Academy (known as the Academia de Alcochete) has been renamed Sporting/Puma Academy (Academia Sporting/Puma) to reflect the sponsoring and naming contract signed by the club and the sports brand Puma in 2006; the contract will last until 2012.
[edit] Honours
Portuguese Liga
- Winners: (18) 1940–41 1943–44 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1950–51 1951–52 1952–53 1953–54 1957–58 1961–62 1965–66 1969–70 1973–74 1979–80 1981–82 1999–2000 2001–02
- Runners-up: (19) 1934–35 1938–39 1939–40 1941–42 1942–43 1944–45 1949–50 1959–60 1960–61 1967–68 1968–69 1970–71 1976–77 1984–85 1994–95 1996–97 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08
Cup of Portugal
- Winners: (19) 1922–23 1933–34 1935–36 1937–38 1940–41 1944–45 1945–46 1947–48 1953–54 1962–63 1970–71 1972–73 1973–74 1977–78 1981–82 1994–95 2001–02 2006–07 2007–08
- Runners-up: (16) 1922 1925 1928 1933 1935 1937 1952 1955 1960 1970 1972 1979 1987 1994 1996 2000
Portuguese League Cup
SuperCup Cândido de Oliveira
- Winners: (7) 1982 1987 1995 2000 2002 2007 2008
- Runners-up: (1) 1980
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
UEFA Cup
[edit] League and Cup History
- Further information: Sporting Clube de Portugal statistics
[edit] Current squad
Players with double Nationality
[edit] Out on loan
[edit] Young squads
