Sporting may be ready to face Juventus in the Europa League’s quarter-finals, but it’s fair to say that knocking Arsenal out of the competition was already quite an achievement for them.
The Portuguese media still talks about the great display the Lions put in against the Gunners, and that match was now mentioned in an interview that their star Pedro Gonçalves gave to UEFA’s official channels.
The winger scored a wonderful goal at the Emirates Stadium by chipping Aaron Ramsdale from the midfield. Now in this conversation (via Mais Futebol), he claimed that Sporting players already knew about the risky positioning that the Arsenal goalkeeper sometimes has.
“In the dressing room, we commented on the fact that, from the beginning of the game, their goalkeeper moved far away from the goal when they had the ball,” said Pedro Gonçalves.
“I never thought: ‘If I have the ball, I will try to pass over him because he’s far from the goal line’. No, it was a spur of the moment thing. Marcus was on my left and I saw him giving me space, but when I looked up I saw this yellow thing, which was the goalkeeper. I saw that he was advanced and I tried.
The player also talked about his celebration of that goal, explaining that it was so unexpected that he couldn’t think a lot.
“It was weird because – and as you can see from the broadcast – I didn’t know what to do. I started running like crazy, trying to celebrate as much as I could, because I realised it was an excellent goal. I think it will always be the best goal of my career, considering the moment I scored, the type of game it was, against that team, in that stadium. It’s going to live with me for the rest of my life and that’s it.”
With Sporting unlikely to fight for the Portuguese League title this season, all their hopes are on the Europa League, and beating Arsenal certainly gives them a lot more confidence that the trophy is a possibility. Now it’s time to prove themselves against the Serie A giants.
