Football
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Sporting Lisbon will welcome Manchester City to Estadio Jose Alvalade in the Champions League last-16 round first-leg tie on Tuesday. The kick-off is at 22:00 CEST.
Preview
It's been 13 years since Sporting made it to the CL knock-out stage last time around. The Lions were thrashed 12-1 on aggregate by Bayern Munich back then and there's a huge probability that Ruben Amorim's men are going to experience the same fate against Man City this term.
As things stand now, Sporting are second in the Portuguese top flight standings, six points adrift of leaders Porto. It also were the Dragons who held Amorim's side to a 2-2 draw in their most recent league encounter on Friday, putting an end to Sporting's four-game winning streak across all competitions.
Pep Guardiola's crop, meanwhile, will travel to Lisbon on the back of a 4-0 demolition of Norwich City in the Premier League on Saturday which saw them moving nine points clear of second-placed Liverpool who have a game in hand. The Cityzens have gone unbeaten in 12 matches in all competitions since losing to RB Leipzig on December 7 and now are placed as the hot favourites to claim their first ever Champions League title.
Team news
Even if the hosts do not have any confirmed absentees for this clash, it remains to be seen if their arguably best player this season Pedro Goncalves overcomes a muscular issue to feature on Tuesday. As for the visitors, Kyle Walker is suspended for this one while Jack Grealish and Gabriel Jesus remain doubtful due to respective injury woes.
Prediction
As City are set to face the likes of Tottenham, Everton and Man United before the return clash with Sporting at the Etihad Stadium in March, we'd say that Guardiola's men would certainly try to decide this tie's fate already on Tuesday. Given the Cityzens's all but perfect form in the past few months, we can't envisage any other outcome that City's confident victory this time around.
Tip
Manchester City to win and total over 2.5 at 1.85 with 1XBET.
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