Nantes replace Sporting as Albion’s final friendly opponents

Sporting Lisbon will no longer be the opponents for Brighton and Hove Albion’s final friendly after the Portugese giants pulled out of the fixture.

There place will instead be taken by Ligue 1 side FC Nantes. The game will still take place at the Amex on Friday 3rd August at 7.45p. Any tickets bought already remain valid despite the change in opponents.

It’s been a turbulent time at Sporting over the last six months. In April, Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho claimed to have suspended 19 players after they were eliminated from the Europa League by eventual winners Atletico Madrid. He subsequently deleted the post and most of those players played in Sporting’s next fixture.

Then in May, a group of 50 Sporting supporters attacked players at the clubs training ground after their failure to qualify for the Champions League.

Striker Bas Dost suffered a head wound in that attack, prompting seven first team players to cancel their contracts with the club. Ruben Ribeiro, Daniel Podence, Rui Patricio, William Carvalho, Gelson Martins and Bruno Fernandes were the others.

The announcements of their departures coincidentally came on the day Sporting were announced as the Albion’s friendly opponents.

Given Sporting’s descent into full basket case club, many Albion fans questioned the wisdom of selecting them as friendly opponents. Andy Naylor was typically condescending, saying they were a huge club we should be grateful to be watching. People were in fact concerned about the lack of players, but as per usual, Naylor couldn’t see the wood for the trees and he never misses an excuse to bash the Albion fan base. Well, this latest development is an example of another thing he has got wrong.

Luckily for the Albion, Nantes have agreed to step into the breach. Les Canaris finished 9th in Ligue 1 last season under Claudio Ranieri with their most notable player being former Manchester United full back Fábio da Silva. Ranieri left the club at the start of the summer with his place being taken by Miguel Cardoso.

Despite what Chris Hughton has told the press, they won’t provide as tough an opponent as a full strength Sporting would have done. But given that the game is less than two weeks away, the Albion have done well to find opponents to fill the void at all.