Sporting – Galatasaray

In Lisbon, fans will see goals from both teams.

In the last edition of the Champions League, Sporting felt as comfortable as possible. The Portuguese squad managed to finish the group stage in the top eight, ending up in the company of five English Premier League clubs, as well as Barcelona and Bayern. In eight group-stage matches, the Lisbon side lost only the away fixtures to the aforementioned Bayern and Italian champions Napoli, but at home they looked irresistible. At their stadium, Sporting even managed to beat PSG. In the knockout stage the Portuguese reached the quarterfinals, where they narrowly failed to force extra time in the tie with Arsenal. It should be noted that at that time Arsenal were considered favorites of the Champions League. Despite such a splendid European campaign, Sporting in the previous season for the first time in three years missed the national league trophy, finishing six points behind Porto. During the off-season the team lost several leaders of the squad, among them Giovani Cuenda, Morten Juulmann, Osman Diomande, Francisco Trincao and Alisson Santos. These players were sold for a total of 200 million euros. In their place Sporting bought players with roughly half the transfer value of the outgoing ones, trying at the same time not to lose the quality of the squad and to earn. The quality of play has been decent so far. In five matches of the Portuguese championship, Sporting has taken thirteen of fifteen possible points. The other thing is that the team had not yet faced a Galatasaray-caliber opponent this season. The Istanbul club also reached the knockout stage in the previous edition of the Champions League. Okan Buruk's team, in the playoff qualifying round, knocked Juventus out, but could not overturn Liverpool on aggregate over the two legs. At the same time, Galatasaray, unlike the upcoming opponent, managed to defend the national title. In the off-season the Turkish champions only strengthened. Its squad was augmented by Alexey Batrakov from Lokomotiv Moscow and Rafael Leao from Milan. Both players complemented the team's superb attacking line. Opponents play in an attacking style; it is unlikely anything will prevent them from exchanging goals in their head-to-head meeting.