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Arun - February 14, 2022
Sporting CP vs Manchester City
UEFA Champions League
Date: 15 February 2022, Tuesday
Kick-off at 20:00 UK/ 21:00 CET
Venue: Estadio Jose Alvalade (Lisbon).
Manchester City are huge favourites to beat Sporting CP on Tuesday as Pep Guardiola target maiden Champions League title with the Sky Blues.
Sporting qualified from an easy group, but lost three games, twice to Ajax and once to Dortmund while bagging three wins in between to finish second in the pool.
This is only their second appearance at the Champions League round of 16. They were eliminated by Bayern Munich at this stage in the 2008/09 season.
They are in an excellent run of form since and sit second in the Liga Portugal behind archrivals FC Porto.
The Citizens on the other hand finished top of their group ahead of PSG. However, they lost two away games in the process, first at Paris and then to Leipzig with a heavy rotated squad.
The English Champions are without a doubt the team to beat in Europe this term and they are well poised to retain the English Premier League in the current campaign as well after stretching a 12-point lead over nearest rivals Liverpool on the weekend.
Manchester City who lost last season’s final to domestic rivals Chelsea are priced at 1.30 odd to win in Lisbon. Meanwhile the hosts are priced at sky high 10.00 odd to mount an upset on Tuesday. Both teams are yet to see a draw in Champions League this season and a stalemate is priced at 5.50 odd.
The solitary meeting between Sporting and Manchester City can be dated back to the 2011/12 season of Europa League.
The Portuguese team won the home leg 1-0 back then before losing 2-3 at the Etihad. However, away goal helped them to get past the English club.
Sporting CP have a decent home record against English Premier League sides having won in 7 of the overall 11 games so far along with a draw and 3 losses.
This will be Manchester City’s fifth visit to Portugal. They won 1, drew 2 and lost 1 of the previous four.
Both teams are in excellent run of form, but the Citizens are class apart and they must win this tie with minimal fuss. We will take Manchester City win in combination with both teams to score with Sporting last failed to score at their home patch in August 2020. That is a massive streak of 39 games.
I will back the correct full-time score of 2-1 along with it, which was common when the team in Sky Blue take on strong teams, let it be PSG, Dortmund or Real Madrid.
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