Sporting Clube Portugal - Athletic Club

Sporting Club de Portugal defeated Athletic Club 3-0 in the Five Violins Trophy clash at the José Alvalade. The scoreboard didn't truly reflect the pattern of the game, but the Lions lacked punch in attack and couldn't contain the Lisbon side's counter-attacks.

As expected, Sporting were a strong opponent for Athletic at this stage of the pre-season. The Portuguese league champions made Athletic pay dearly for their first mistake, a loss of possession in midfield that Pedro Gonçalves turned into a goal. Alex Padilla stopped Viktor Gyökeres from scoring Sporting's second and Los Leones started to look dangerous.

Gorka Guruzeta, from a corner, and Alex Berenguer, after a good pass from Iñaki Williams, threatened to equalise before the referee disallowed a Guruzeta goal for offside. Geovany Quenda then went close a couple of times for Rúben Amorim side, first hitting the crossbar and then having an effort blocked on the line by Yeray.

Athletic came out on fire in the second half. Iñaki, Guruzeta and Berenguer had chances, while Oihan Sancet was convinced a Sporting player had handballed before he shot on target. Padilla was on hand to save another effort from Gyökeres and Andoni Gorosabel stopped a Trincao header from going in.

Ernesto Valverde made several changes in the last third of the match. Athletic conceded two more goals in the closing stages as Marcus Edwards and Trincao exposed the problems already seen when defending spaces in the first half. Javier Martón could've have pulled one back late on.

They say you learn more from defeats than victories. Plenty more matches left before the real action begins.