Things I love:

The beautiful green and white listed jerseys, the beautiful and powerful lion on the badges, the ancient history that goes back to the 1st of July 1906. The day the founder warned:
"May Sporting become a large Club. So large as the largest in Europe."
And right he was, for today Sporting is the second most titled Club in Europe only overcome by FC Barcelona, as well as the third Club in Europe with the most European Cups, right after FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

The Club´s founding nature could only aim for such high goals because, Sporting is way more than just a football Club. It goes beyond that, it always has. We´re the only ones in Portugal - and one of the few in the world - that compete in all sports, in all events, on every track, field, pitch or gymnasium.
And Sporting does that ever since it was first born, successfully.
That is why today, the Club holds over an impressive 14 000 titles in all sports. That is why, today, Sporting is the Club with the most titles in strictly Olympic sports worldwide and, that is why today, Sporting is the third Club in the world with the most sportswomen and sportsmen assigned - present and past - to its ranks.

This is achievement.
And this is far more important than football.

Despite this, in football alone, Sporting holds important european records that are yet to overcome and, if I may say so, will never be overcome, ever.

Records such as the largest victory in european football competitions, 16-1, in 1964. The still european record for the "Golden Boot" with Hector Yazalde in 1974: 47 goals in championship matches only, in one single season. No other player in the game´s history has ever done any better.
Marks such as having been the designated Club to open - by express invitation - the Uefa European Cup, today´s Uefa Champions League, being as well the first Club to score in the competition.
The greatest goal-scorer in world´s football ranked by FIFA, also a Sporting´s son and all-time player: the legendary and late Fernando Peyroteo, who graced his loving Club - and football - with an overwhelming 416 games played with the Club´s jersey, having scored on those a total of 689 goals.
A world record in goals-to-game ratio that will never be taken from him, or the Club.
The heaviest all-time european defeat for Manchester United: happened precisely in Sporting´s stadium. No team or Club in Europe has ever done any better when facing the red devils, before or since, the glorious night in March 18, 1964, when the lion´s roar echoed all over Europe. The night where the legendary and imortal Sir Bobby Charlton, Dennis Law, George Best and one of the wordl´s best teams ever were powerless to stop Sporting from turning the Old Traford´s 1-4 of the first leg with a crushing and thundering 5-0 in Lisbon, at José Alvalade Stadium, the "Noble Volcano", Sporting´s home-field.

Nevertheless, whether it´s "Sports" or "Football alone", these aren´t the reasons why Sporting is beloved by the ones who possess such love for the Club, the ones that follow with such eager and live the Club throughout its glories, and failures.
We don´t love the lion because we win.
We love him because we were fortunate enough to have been born with no other option. And that holds no triumph, prize, cup or medal because it´s an inevitability: if Sporting didn´t exist we would wait for its birth, we would wait for the green jerseys to be founded, the exact same way they were, 103 years ago, in the heart of Lisbon.

Long live Sporting Clube de Portugal.
Long live Sporting. The one born in Lisbon.