A balmy evening as you’d expect in August on the Lisbon coast, a jovial crowd with a fair splattering of curious tourists and two middle-ranked Portuguese top-flight teams proved ingredients for an extremely entertaining evening at the Estádio António Coimbra da Mota tonight, as Estoril and Rio Ave played out an exciting 2-2 draw. 

Gil Vicente suffered a 4-0 defeat against AZ Alkmaar in the Europa Conference League play-off first leg. The Gilistas were 1-0 down with 15 minutes remaining before a late capitulation virtually ended their chances in the tie.

Dani de Wit’s firm header gave AZ a deserved half-time lead with Mayckel Lahdo, Vangelis Pavlidis and Mees de Wit completing the rout late on.

Ivo Vieira’s side never looked like scoring in the Netherlands and have next to no chance of overturning the deficit in Barcelos next week.

• Primeira Liga,
• Sporting,
• Ruben Amorim
• Matheus Nunes
• Premier League
• Wolverhampton Wanderers

When Sporting took the unprecedented gamble of prizing youthful head coach Rúben Amorim away from Sporting de Braga, costing the club’s coffers a record-breaking €10 million to take the reins at the Alvalade, the under-fire club president Frederico Varandas had just one name on the tip of his tongue when batting away the criticism - that of an upcoming, yet relatively unknown Matheus Nunes.

In Varandas’ words, “Matheus Nunes alone will cover the Amorim cost,” as they eyed the Brazilian-born star’s ascension, among others, under their latest appointment. 

First-half goals from Gilberto and Gonçalo Ramos gave Benfica a 2-0 victory over Dynamo Kyiv in Poland tonight in the first leg of the Champions League playoff.

Cheered on by an impassioned and patriotic crowd, the team from the war-torn country rallied in the second forty-five minutes, creating chances to cut the deficit.

But no further goals were scored and the Portuguese side are in prime position to qualify for the group stages of the world’s greatest club competition.