Sporting vs Bologna 1991: The day the Lions roared again in Europe | OneFootball

On Wednesday Sporting play their final match of the league phase of the new Champions League format against Italian outfit Bologna. The Portuguese team may be favoured to obtain a positive result this week, but going back over three decades when the two teams last met in European competition – at a time when Italian sides were head and shoulders above all other nations when it came to club football – that certainly was not the case.

Nevertheless, the Lions scored a famous victory over the Seria A team. Miguel Lourenço Pereira takes us back to 1991 and a memorable night at the José Alvalade stadium.

Sporting supporters have not enjoyed as many European glory nights as their Big Three rivals FC Porto and SL Benfica. Their historical peak came a few years before the continental tournaments kickstarted and despite the brilliant win in the 1964 Cup Winners Cup edition, few were the memorable matches played along the way until now.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any, even if most supporters tended to forget the times when the Leões were able to perform at a level worthy of their domestic history. In 1990/91 there was no bigger feat than to put an Italian side to shame. It was a season when the UEFA Cup was played out by two Italian sides, at a time when Italian teams played usually one, two or even the three continental finals in the same season, sometimes against each other. That makes 20 March 1991 an even more special night. The never-ending roar of the Lions at the old Alvalade is still echoing in eternity.

Outshone in Europe by domestic rivals

Up until 1990 Sporting CP had only played two European semi-finals, both at the now-extinct Cup Winners Cup. The one they won, back in the mid-1960s, and the one they lost at Magdeburg, the night Portugal underwent their most historical political moment of the 20th century, the Carnation Revolution.

By that time Benfica were already a two-time European Cup winner and had played – and lost – six other finals, including the previous season’s European Cup showdown. Porto had won the same competition in 1987 and played the 1984 Cup Winners Cup final, lost against Juventus. You could say that, at the start of 1990/91 few would expect Sporting, who hadn’t even won the league for eight seasons in a row – a club record at the time that would be increased by a full decade – to become the best performing Portuguese side in the continental competitions of the season. But they were and deservedly so.

The Lions had to play in the UEFA Cup once again, alongside Benfica and Vitória SC, after Porto qualified for the European Cup and Estrela da Amadora played in the Cup Winners Cup. They were drawn against KV Mechelen in the first round, a Belgian side who had recently won the Cup Winners Cup final against Ajax, a team not to be messed with. They were tough opponents and only a Jorge Cadete goal in Lisbon broke the deadlock between both sides. With both Benfica and Estrela already out, Sporting were, by October, the only Portuguese side in the tournament. Pholitecnica Timissora were much more feeble opponents and were duly thrashed, before Vitesse were also ousted by the Lisbon club, just before the winter break.

Italian domination

Of the last eight teams in the competition, half were Italian, a reflection of the nation’s hegemonic dominion of the tournament back in the day. Only the season before the final had been played out between Fiorentina and Juventus and many expected a re-run of two Italian foes in the end. Sporting, alongside Brondby Anderlecht and Torpedo Moscow could only hope for a nice draw in their favour but if the Soviets and Danish were granted a free pass to the semis by playing one another, both the Belgian and the Portuguese sides were forced to meet the Italian favourites. Sporting was bound to play Bologna, who sat eighth at the time in the ever-demanding Serie A.

A Bola's Sporting 2-0 Bologna match report

Coached by Luigi Radice, a hard-core veteran who had coached Torino, Inter, Milan and Roma in the past, had been called up to save a side from a disastrous season. The Reggio-Emilia team was comprised essentially of middle-class Italian footballers. There was the promising defender Paolo Nero, the Hungarian Lajos Detari and the upcoming Swiss international Kubilay Turkylmaz, but this was no team of stars.

Sporting’s sprinkling of star names

Sporting, on the other hand, did have a lot of class internationals in their ranks. The well-loved Marinho Peres, a former Brazilian international and a Barcelona player who had made a name for himself as Belenenses and Vitória SC coach before moving to Alvalade, could call upon the likes of Oceano, Carlos Xavier, Litos, Mário Jorge, Krasimir Balakov, Jorge Cadete as well as veteran striker Fernando Gomes among others. There were also youth players ready to jump ship, such as Luís Figo and Emílio Peixe, who were about to clinch back-to-back under-20 World Cups the following summer. Still, the aura of Italian football was just too much and everyone gave Bologna the upper hand in the tie.

The first match was due to be played at the iconic Renatto dell Ara ground in Bologna. The home side were not as dominant as expected and despite Turkylmaz opening the score just after the break, a late equalizer by Luisinho, with two minutes left on the clock, offered Sporting a golden opportunity to stay alive in the tournament. They only needed to stop Bologna scoring in the return leg to move forward to the semis and suddenly, optimism was in the air. The José de Alvalade was packed for the occasion and rightly so, as Sporting supporters knew the club was just 90 minutes away from reaching their first European semi-final in seventeen years, not a feeble achievement.

Crackling atmosphere

Under a brilliant atmosphere on that March 20th night, Sporting took control right from the start and Filipe scored early but the goal was disallowed for offside. Taking no prisoners, the Lions kept on going and in the twentieth minute, Jorge Cadete finally scored, a brilliant header after a perfect cross from the right by Carlos Xavier. Xavier then took a free kick inside the box and smashed the ball into the woodwork before halftime, at a time when the home side were cruising and many expected the second goal to land soon enough. It wasn’t until the end of the game that it came to pass. In between Sporting kept on creating chances, Cadete missing many incredibly it has to be said, and Bologna were rarely dangerous on the counter.

A Jorge Cadete header put Sporting in charge of the tie

It was a penalty kick that put the game to rest with ten minutes to spare. A foul that took place outside of the box, on Filipe, was turned into a penalty and Fernando Gomes, a world-class expert, easily netted, ending any doubts some might still have about Sporting’s chances of making the semis.

Lone survivors in Europe

The last ten minutes were lived as a collective celebration for a side that was by then already out of the Portuguese Cup and the fight for the title, eventually won by their neighbours Benfica, but now had in the UEFA Cup a chance to make history happen. They were also the only Portuguese side still playing in Europe as Estrela had been out since October and Porto ended up beaten by Bayern Munich in the European Cup quarter-final that same week.

It was also Marinho Peres’s birthday so there was cake and champagne to end the night. Club president Sousa Cintra, vocal as usual, proclaimed his side to be one of the best in Europe and favourites for the trophy but everyone else knew how difficult it would be to reach the final. With Inter and Roma progressing to the semis, there was hope the draw would pit the two Italian giants against each other but it wasn’t to be. While the Gialorrosi overcame Brondby, Sporting had to face the mighty Inter side coached by Giovanni Trapattoni who had Andreas Bremhe, Jurgen Klinsmann and Lothar Matthaus, all recently crowned World Champions with West Germany, as their most influential players. Inter was considered one of the best sides in European football, having won the Scudetto just two seasons prior, and were clear favourites to progress.

A late penalty converted by Fernando Gomes sealed the deal for Sporting

Star-studded Inter a bridge too far

And yet, despite all that, they weren’t able to score at the Alvalade match for the first leg, a goalless draw that left everything to play for at San Siro. For Sporting supporters, there was hope in the air, after a well-fought battle at home that at least guaranteed there would be no away goal to curse them on their trip to Italy. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Sporting played bravely but an early penalty scored by Matthaus followed by a second goal by Klinsmann before the halftime break sealed their fate. They were very near to making history but, in the end, logic prevailed and Inter went on to win the tournament as expected.

The Lions would have to wait another fourteen years to once again reach a European semi-final, when they beat the Dutch side AZ Alkmaar in the dying seconds before hosting CSKA Moscow in the same UEFA Cup final, painfully losing at the new Alvalade ground. Over the last thirty years few were the European nights of Alvalade as memorable as the one against Bologna, a day when the Lions proved their worth and showed Europe that, despite all the glory and fame of Italian football, they were still worthy opponents.