Rui Borges abandons Sporting with double and the club's best Champions

Rui Borges abandons Sporting with an I Football League and a Portuguese Cup won, but also with the best campaign ever in the Champions League, where the ‘lions’ reached the quarterfinals.

In almost two years of stay in Alvalade (he arrived in December 2024 from the Vitória de Guimarães), the 45-year-old coach oscillated among the great exhibitions, such as the 5-0 tax to Norwegians Bodo/Glimt, which earned the passage to the final rooms of the ‘Champions’, and the ‘king’ label of the waste of advantages, with a total of 19, the most recent with the LASK Linz, (3-2) also in the Champions League.

In his first passage by a ‘great’, after a career built in clubs such as Académico de Viseu, Académica, Nacional da Madeira, Moreirense and Vitória de Guimarães, Borges benefited from Ruben Amorim’s ‘heritance’ to reach the national title and a Cup of Portugal, in 2024/25, ending after not confirming the expectations that were created with the ‘fold’.

In the following season, starting from the root, the coach born in Mirandela still fought for a historic three-time championship, but was beaten by FC Porto, and fell with bang in the Cup of Portugal, losing the final in Jamor against Torreense, the II Liga.

It was worth the excellent campaign at ‘Champions’, first by being among the first eight in the league phase and then by falling just in front of the Arsenal, in the ‘fourths’, in a fairly balanced elimination.

This was worth the renewal of the contract (June 2028) and its continuity in 2026/27 for the direction led by Frederico Varandas, but the nine points that already separate Sporting and the leader FC Porto in the championship, as well as the recent irregular exhibitions, such as the home draw with the Arouca (2-2) and the defeat in Alvalade with the Academic Viseu (2-1) ended up dictating the end of a ‘relation’ that had long been known not to last much longer.

Borges definitely closes his locker in Alvalade and Alcochete Academy with a total of 99 games to remember, of which 64 were victories, 22 draws and 13 ended in defeats.

Sporting will soon announce the successor of Rui Borges, and Paulo Fonseca, guiding the French of Lyon since January 2025, assumed today there is a possibility of being the next ‘Leonino’ coach.

Rui Borges leaves two days from Sporting's visit to the Ukrainians of Shakhtar Donetsk, at the match of the fourth round of the League of Champions league, which will be played in London due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at a time when he was under increasing challenge in the 'lions'.

Sporting was the ninth club in the career of Rui Borges, who began this route in the emblem of his land, Mirandela, passed by Académico de Viseu, Académica, Nacional, Vilafranquense and Mafra, until debuting in the I League to the command of Moreirense, in 2023/24.

A few months later, in the service of Vitória de Guimarães, but enough to put the Vimarans in the eighth finals of the Liga Conference in 2024/25, before the transfer to Lisbon.