Amid Sporting’s maelstrom of transfer activity in the summer it almost went unnoticed that the Lisbon outfit had signed midfielder Pedro Lima from AFS for a modest fee.
Until this week, the 23-year-old Brazilian had hardly featured for the Lions, but coach Rui Borges gave him his chance in Tuesday’s Taça da Liga match against Marítimo and he responded with both goals in a 2-1 victory.
Borges kept faith in him tonight against Casa Pia and Lima repaid his faith with an excellent performance and another goal, opening the scoring for the visitors in the 13th minute.
Sporting dominated the match but could not put it to bed, mainly because of an outstanding goalkeeping display by Costa Rican stopper Patrick Sequeira.
Only in the dying seconds was the victory confirmed, Geny Catamo rolling the ball into an empty net after a quick Sporting break from a Casa Pia corner for which Sequeira had gone up to try and grab an equaliser.
A second successive win, albeit without playing particularly well, will boost Sporting’s confidence ahead of their Champions League encounter on Tuesday against Shakhtar Donetsk, which will be played at Stamford Bridge in London.
For more images of the match see the Casa Pia 0-2 Sporting photo gallery on Instagram.
