Adrien Silva sets sights on a lengthy Europa League campaign

Alvalade skipper Adrien Silva spoke with the press this Wednesday afternoon, ahead of Sporting’s Europa League hosting of Lokomotiv Moscow.

“It is true that our objective wasn’t to be in the Europa League, but there is no point thinking about that now. This is a prestigious competition and we want to reach the final, but that doesn’t mean that this competition is more important for us because we didn’t qualify for the Champions League. Every game is important when you play for Sporting”, opened Adrien, going on speak more depth about Thursday’s encounter: “We aren’t comparing this game to the one with CSKA. We have looked at Lokomotiv and what matters is that we focus on what we have to do. We can’t relax, or we will be surprised.”

Portugal to face Albania and France in September

The Portuguese national coach has included three Sporting players in his squad for the coming clashes with France and Albania.

Rui Patrício, Adrien and João Mário are the Alvalade trio who feature in a squad comprised of a staggering 13 out of 24 players who were produced at the Sporting Academy.

The Portuguese will take on France in Alvalade at 19h45 GMT on Friday the 4th of September, before travelling for the European qualifier against Albania at 20h45 CET on the 7th of September.

Adrien and João Pereira after Sporting's 3-1 loss to CSKA Moscow

Both Adrien and João Pereira met with the press after Wednesday’s 3-1 Champions League qualification loss to CSKA Moscow.

“We could take about a few incidents, but it isn’t worth it now. What made the difference was where we failed in the second-half and we didn’t come out well after the break. We have to accept that we made mistakes which let our opponent back into the game. We could have come to Moscow with a stronger position, but for a variety of reasons that didn’t happen”, opened Adrien, before speaking about Slimani’s equaliser at 2-2 that was ruled out: “I didn’t see if the goal was fairly disallowed or not. We have missed out objective and we didn’t deserve this result tonight, but what matters is how you finish and not how you start.”

João Pereira also conceded that mistakes were made in the Russian capital, but shrugged off the suggestion that the result will leave a mark on the rest of the season: “We started well and we didn’t the hard part, which was scoring. When you are 1-0 up you can’t make so many mistakes. We prepared well and we trained properly for this match, but things didn’t go as well as we wanted and we can’t let it influence the rest of the season. Now we have other objectives and we will focus on them.”