Sporting has brought in a third new face in two days, this time securing the services of the Brazilian central defender on a loan deal from Desportivo Brasil. Xandão, who will wear shirt number 93, was officially revealed as the latest Alvalade arrival on Thursday evening, in a press conference in the Artur Agostinho Auditorium.

"I am really happy to be representing such a big club. I want to thank the board for this chance and I hope that I can leave my name in the history of Sporting. A few things contributed to me choosing Sporting and thank god that everything went well", began the Brazilian defender, affirming that it would be "humanly impossible" to play against FC Porto on Saturday, having been out of action for more than a month.

Xandão highlighted that he hopes to adapt to Portuguese football as quickly as possible and is looking to play a role in bringing silverware to Alvalade. "I would love to be here for many years to come and I want to help Sporting win titles. With everything that I have heard from the Brazilian players that have played here and with what I saw in the Club Museum just now, I would say that Sporting is a brilliant club to play at. I have no doubt that we have everything that we need here, so it is down to me now", said the Sporting number 93, going on to talk about constant coaching changes at São Paulo playing a role in keeping him out of the Brazilian national set-up: "In the two years that I played in São Paulo, we had a total of 77 games and I played in half of them. I couldn't get a good run together because São Paulo changed coach a few times."

The Brazilian penned an 18 month long loan deal with Sporting, coming in from Desportivo Brasil; a club that holds 85% of the player's rights. Sporting will also have an option to sign the player on a permanent deal, for a fee of three million Euros. Carlos Freitas was also in the Alvalade Auditorium for the presentation and wasted little time in indicating that Xandão "has been attracting attention for a while and attempts were made to sign him at other times. However, this time we were successful. We are really happy with his arrival at Alvalade and we are sure that he will help us to fight for our objectives this season."

The Alvalade director justified the acquisition of Xandão in light of the stresses currently being put on the Sporting defence: "It is public knowledge that we have had a issues when it comes to using Rodriguez. He is recovering, but right now Carriço is also unavailable. The fact that we are still involved in four competitions and the fact that we could still play around 30 matches to the end of the season and with some of our players going away on international duty means that we need a lot of players."

Relative to reported interest from Peñarol in signing Luís Aguiar, Carlos Freitas noted that he is waiting for a solid offer to made. Talking about the PSV star Labyad, the Sporting director said: "PSV know our intentions, the player knows our intentions and we know what we will do next season." Saving his final words for the media speculation surrounding Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Carlos Freitas stressed: "Every buy-out clause in the contract that we have with the player becomes active between May and June."

Text: Sandro Baguinho
Photos: César Santos

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