Argentine puts Sporting on road to victory

Leandro Romagnoli and Derlei score second half goals to give Sporting Lisbon a 2-0 home win over Basel in a lacklustre Champions League Group C match.

Sporting Lisbon's Leandro Romagnoli, left, celebrates his goal against Basel with teammate Joao Moutinho.

LISBON // The midfielder Leandro Romagnoli and the striker Derlei scored second half goals to give Sporting Lisbon a 2-0 home win over Basel in a lacklustre Champions League Group C match last night. Sporting broke the deadlock when the Argentine playmaker Romagnoli took advantage of a mistake in the Swiss side's defence to open the scoring after 55 minutes. Then the veteran striker Derlei, who hit the post after 75 minutes, made sure of victory with the second goal four minutes from the end from a fine, latching on to a long pass from Romagnoli.

After a disappointing first half, Sporting improved with the Brazilian midfielder Fabio Rochemback's substitution for the Montenegrin forward Simon Vukcevic. Sporting, who lost their opening match at Barcelona, are equal with Shakhtar Donetsk on three points in Group C. Barcelona, who won 2-1 in Ukraine, lead with six points and Basel have none. Basel, who defended in numbers and relied on counter-attacks, had their best chance when David Abraham missed the target in front of Sporting goalkeeper Rui Patricio after 23 minutes.

"Sporting started the match well. We created four opportunities to score in the first half against a team that was well organised in defence," the Sporting coach Paulo Bento said. "The second half was well played, we took advantage of being ahead. I think this was a fair victory, although we could have won by a bigger margin." The Basel coach Christian Gross was not too down after the result: "I'm not unhappy, we improved a lot in relation to our first match. Now we have to show what we're capable of against Barcelona. "I think the difference was the speed of Sporting's game in the second half. A man came on (Vukcevic) who speeded up play. They had some luck but deserved to win." *Reuters

Bordeaux 1 Roma 3 CFR Cluj 0 Chelsea 0 Anorthosis Famagusta 3 Panathinaikos 1 Inter Milan 1 Werder Bremen 1 Shakhtar Donetsk 1 Barcelona 2 Sporting Lisbon 2 Basel 0 Atletico Madrid 2 Marseille 1 Liverpool 3 PSV Eindhoven 1