Sporting CP vs Manchester City Preview

Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon will look to continue their stay in the UCL when they host Premier League champions Manchester City this Tuesday.

Rúben Amorim’s side are playing in their first Champions League (UCL) knockout stage tie since the 2008/09 season.

They qualified for this stage of the tournament by finishing second in their group.  Sporting finished level on points (9) with Dortmund and they narrowly progressed based on their better head-to-head record against BVB.

They are one of the sides with the lowest points tally to qualify for this round with only Atletico Madrid (7) and Benfica (8) bagging fewer points in the previous round. As a result, the Portuguese side are one of the weakest teams left in the tournament. They are also the side with the most goals conceded (12) currently left in the tournament.

However, they come into this tie on a five-game unbeaten run, winning four of those games while scoring two goals in eight of their last ten games. They will fancy their chances of getting a good result against City.

For Manchester City, they come into this tie on the back of a routine 4-0 win over Norwich thanks to Raheem Sterling’s hat-trick and a solitary strike from Phil Foden.

They will now turn their attention to the Champions League knockout stages where they will look to begin with a win on their way to securing their sixth consecutive participation in the quarter-final stage.

They qualified for this round of the tournament by finishing top of their group with 12 points (W4, L2), one point ahead of PSG.

Pep Guardiola’s side are currently on a 12 game unbeaten run in all competitions with their last loss a 2-1 loss to RB Leipzig in this competition.

Given their record in this stage of the UCL, they are the favourites to progress to the next round.