There’s no doubt Gelson Martins is one of Portugal’s biggest prospects at the moment, as at the age of 22, he’s having a solid campaign helping Sporting to fight for the league title.
That’s why there would be many top clubs interested on him, including Liverpool, who reportedly offered €50m for him in the last summer window, and were last week told to up that amount and quickly.
Sporting don’t seem keen on selling, and keep finding new ways to increase his release clause. The Lisbon side is pretty convinced that he’s a future superstar, and Liverpool are the most linked club at the moment.
But the player has just made a mistake that could not only affect Sporting’s season, but also the way that other clubs have been looking at him.
Gelson Martins is a big friend of Ruben Semedo, his former teammate at Sporting. Since the now Villarreal defender has been arrested and detained for a series of crimes (attempted murder, injury, threats, illegal detention, illegal possession of weapons, as reported by El Mundo), the Sporting player has been showing some big support for him.
There’s nothing wrong with that, at least if Gelson really believes that Semedo is innocent, and the Spanish police is completely wrong, which isn’t exactly the discussion here.
Sporting struggled to beat Moreirense on Monday night, until a moment of brilliance from Gelson, who scored a winner in injury time.
That sounds great for interest from Liverpool and elsewhere, but it’s what happened next which is causing huge controversy in Portugal.
When celebrating, he showed a white t-shirt with the same message, and obviously got a yellow card for that. He must have forgot he’d already been booked earlier in the game.
And here’s the big deal: Sporting’s next league game is an away match against Porto. Their northern rivals currently stand five points ahead of the Lions in the league table, and that would be a great chance to decrease the gap.
It’s been over fifteen years since Sporting last won the Portuguese league, and the current season seemed like a real chance for them, especially with Benfica struggling to stay in the title race, and so many young talents having a good year for the Lions.
But if Sporting lose to Porto on Friday, then there’s a good chance the league is over, with Gelson getting some of the blame.
Missing arguably your club’s biggest match of the year because of a t-shirt supporting someone accused of attempted murder, injury, threats, illegal detention and illegal possession of weapons isn’t going to impress anyone.
What an idiot.
