João Mário receives award for February

João Mário collected his prize for the Professional Football Syndicate's Youth Player of the Month for February this week, after having already scooped the award in January.

Receiving the award at the Sporting Academy, João Mário was keen to give credit to the entire squad: "I am really happy for having won this award again. It is recognition of the work I have been putting in, but also of what the team has been doing. Things are going well for us and I am really happy. You can't win individual awards without the team. I try to do my best and this is recognition of that."

The Sporting midfielder received a total of 16.94% of votes cast, ahead of Guimarães' Miguel Silva (13.72%).

Academy renews EN ISO 9001:2008 stamp of approval

Sporting Clube de Portugal, Futebol SAD (Alcochete Football Academy), has once again been recognised with the International Organisation for Standardisation's quality management certificate, seeing the club once again awarded certificate NP EN ISO 9001:2008.

The external audit team analysed:

• Conformity and system effectiveness with the audit criteria;
• System Effectiveness for guaranteeing compliance with regulations, statutes, law and contract applicable to the activity of sports organisations (identification, control and verification of conformity);
• System effectiveness for guaranteeing continued compliance with defined objective and an organisational capacity to systematically provide a product and/or service in line with applicable requisites;
• Needs for improving the organisational system.

The certification was renewed after it was deemed that the Sporting Academy ticks all of the necessary boxes. The team responsible for the quality of Sporting's world famous academy would like to thank everybody involved.

Patrício, Paulo Oliveira, Jonathan, Adrien and João Mário all named in top 500

A total of five Alvalade stars feature in this year's World Soccer 500, ranking the 500 most important football players on the planet.

Goalkeeper Rui Patrício, defenders Paulo Oliveira and Jonathan Silva and midfielders Adrien and João Mário are the five named.

Alvalade midfielder scoops award from Players Syndicate

João Mário has been named as the Liga NOS Young Player of the Month for January, in voting by te Professional Football Players Syndicate.

The Alvalade midfielder tallied 16.25% of the vote, ahead of Renato Sanches (Benfica, 14.14%) and André Moreira (U. Madeira, 10,84%).

Eurosport award attributed to Sporting's fans

Sporting's fans have been absolutely unbelievable this season, roaring the team on to various memorable comebacks and a handful of victories over the club's main rivals. In recognition of the Sporting faithful, Eurosport has named Alvalade's fans as the best in Europe.

The voting was split into two phases, with the first to decide the finalists out of a group of 20. In both rounds, Sporting led the pack. The final tally gave Sporting 200,000 votes, a massive 150,000 ahead of second-placed Spartak Moscow. 

Sporting forward claims France Football award

Last week France Football launched a competition to name January's African Player of the Month. In the running were Islam Slimani, Hakim Ziyech (FC Twente, Morroco) and Cheick Diabaté (Bordeux, Mali). At final polling, the Sporting striker finished miles ahead, with a stunning 84% of the vote on the back of 8 goals in just 6 matches.

Speaking with France Football, the Algerian proved happy with his current form, but was keen to highlight his teammates: "I work everyday with my teammates and it is them who give me so many opportunities to score. My job is to score", affirmed Slimani, answering a question on his tough approach to the game: "It comes from my time in Algeria. It hasn't been easy, especially at first with the national team and my club. I accept criticism, but it seems like it has been a bit exaggerated. The truth is that only makes me stronger. It is that anger that makes me never give up."

Coach Jorge Jesus also received praise from the in-form target man: "He is a world class coach and I am not exaggerating. To work with him every day is a pleasure. He helps us improve and you can see that on the pitch. Sometimes he insists in the detail and it might seem like it isn't important, but you quickly understand what he is tryng to do. Tactically, Jorge Jesus is a genius."

Alvalade forward up for France Football award

Until 22h tonight (Friday) you can vote on France Football's website for African Player of the Month. Alvalade hitman Islam Slimani is in the running, along with Cheick Diabaté (Bordéus, Mali)and Hakim Ziyech (FC Twente, Morocco). The Sporting forward has netted a total of 16 goals so far this season, with performances that have kept Sporting at the top of Liga NOS.

Slimani has already been in the spotlight, after his showing against Braga on Liga NOS matchday 17. With 13 goals at the time, he was Africa's third best scorer in European football. His current tally of 16 has moved him up to second, bettered only by Pierre Aubameyand.

You can vote here.

Costa Rican forward bettered only by Chicharito Hernandez

Bryan Ruiz has finished runner-up in the election for CONCACAF Player of the Year, missing out only to the Mexican Javier Chicharito Hernandez, who curiously will face the Costa Rican in Sporting's coming Europa League encounter with Bayer Leverkusen.

PSV's Andrés Guardado finished in third in voting that also included Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders), Oribe Peralta (America), Rodolph Austin (Brondby), Michael Bradley (Toronto FC), Hirving Lozano (Pachuca), Jesús Corona (FC Porto) and Cyle Larin (Orlando City).

Bryan Ruiz was also named for the CONCACAF Best XI, in a group which also includes Tim Howard, Chicharito, Joel Campbell, Hector Moreno and Andrés Guardado.

Algerian with 27.96% of votes cast

Islam Slimani has been named as Liga NOS player of the month in voting by the league's coaches and users of Samsung's 'Partilhamos Futebol' website.

The Algerian forward tallied 27.96% of the vote for December, ahead of Adrien with 13.86%.

Sporting B skipper reflects on his side's loss to Sp. Braga B

Francisco Geraldes received his award for November's II Liga Player of the Month, after his side's 1-0 loss to Sp. Braga B. Speaking at the final whistle, the Alvalade midfielder put the result down to missed chances.

“What was missing for us to get a different result was us converting our chances. We didn't create as many as we would have liked, but we didn't score from any of them. It would be worse if we didn't create any chances and all that is missing is a bit of concentration."

Francisco Geraldes was named Player of the Month on the 17th of December with 7.46% of votes cast, ahead of Gleison (FC Porto B, 6.95%) and Platiny (Feirense, 6.74%).