BARCELONA EXPECT TOUGH CLASH AGAINST SPORTING

Barcelona manager, Ernesto Valverde, said his team would adapt to the tactics of Sporting Lisbon in Wednesday’s Champions League game, even if the home side decided to play defensive counter-attacking soccer.

Valverde said the pace of Sporting’s wingers could cause trouble for the Spanish giants.

“Each team is free to choose which kind of play it wants – defensive or offensive – and we will play in a way to surpass that if they decide to defend individually or zonal marking, we will do our best to overcome that with the arguments that we have from the individual and collective point of view.”

“They won their first match in the Champions League, a match where they were very fast and we need to be very careful with their wingers because they are very fast and they also play very well in midfield, it’s a team that is used to dominating and they also play very well in counter-attack because they have very fast players, so we need to pay attention to them,” Valverde said.

Sporting coach Jorge Jesus said his team had plenty of respect for Barcelona, but still had enough faith in their own qualities to get a desired result from the game.