UCL Predictions and Best Bets for Sporting vs Manchester City (Tuesday, February 15)

Champions League odds suggest Manchester City is the #1 favorite for the title. Priced at +275, Pep Guardiola’s team has the best chance to win this year’s trophy. On the other end of the UCL favorites table is Man City’s next opponent, Sporting Lisbon.

The odds of Sporting winning the 2021-22 Champions League are as long as +50000. This makes Sporting the biggest underdog for the title of all the teams that made it to the Champions League playoffs.

Knowing all this, it’s obvious that this team’s chances in the doubleheader with Manchester City are also very slim.

These two have met only three times in history, with Sporting leading in head-to-head matches 2-1. Still, the most recent Sporting vs. Manchester City game happened in 2012. A lot has changed since.

Over the last ten years, Manchester City won the English Premier League on five occasions and is on a very good road to doing it again. One thing that the Sky Blues from Manchester still haven’t won is the Champions League.

They did come very close to making their dream come true last year, but Chelsea beat them in the final. This year, they have the same task on their to-do list.

Sporting got to the UCL knockout phase after finishing in second place in Group C in the first part of the season. The Green-and-Whites had a 3-0-3 record, with 9 points. They had the same number of points as Dortmund, which finished a spot below them.

Why did it happen? Because the Champions League tiebreaker rules state that if teams are on level points, their head-to-head record is taken into account. Even though Sporting did lose 1-0 in Dortmund, the Portuguese demolished the Germans in Lisbon.

Sporting 3-1 Dortmund. Wow, what a fantastic result!!! Nervier ending than it needed to be ?, but Sporting are through to the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 for just the second time in club history!!!! pic.twitter.com/WkpFLHbzbI

— Sporting160 EN (@Sporting160_EN) November 24, 2021

The game in question took place last November and the score was 3-1 for the hosts. Two of those goals were scored by Sporting’s arguably best player Pedro Goncalves. Apart from scoring, he also made one assist in that game.

Unfortunately for Sporting, the playmaker might miss Tuesday’s game. He picked up a muscle injury on February 6, for which he had to skip one game.

I think he will play, but we might not see Goncalves do much. Instead, the boss of Sporting, Ruben Amorim, might ask other players to step up. The good news for him is that in 2022, Sporting has several veterans who have experience with big games.

Sporting’s goalie Antonio Adan, for example, used to play for Real Madrid. While with Los Blancos, he recorded four Champions League appearances. In the center of the pitch, Sporting has Pablo Sarabia, a former PSG, Sevilla, and Real Madrid player, who’s played a total of six UCL games in his career.

Finally, there’s also Islam Slimani in the Sporting offense, a man who played five UCL matches while in Leicester, scoring once along the way.

In 2008, Sheikh Mansour splashed out over $280 million to become the owner of Manchester City. That was only the beginning; over the years, the club has spent over $1.8 billion on signings. Add to that another $475 million that’s paid out to players and staff every year.

With so much money invested in the club, its owner demands results. So far, the team has been extremely successful in the English top-tier. However, the Sky Blues haven’t done much on the continent.

Pep Guardiola:

"We must be handsome, we must be so sexy, for people to believe we're the favourite [for the #UCL] every single season."

[via @TheDesKelly]

— City Report (@cityreport_) February 14, 2022

They’re still without a Champions League title but their boss Pep Guardiola is determined to change that. Speaking of Guardiola, he already has two UCL titles in his managerial career. Both of those happened when he was the boss of Barcelona (2009 and 2011).

Is it time for Pep to win his third Champions League title? Oddsmakers surely think so, the main reason being that Man City’s roster is packed with amazing players. In fact, the Sky Blues might have the best team in the world in 2022.

Winning the 2022 Champions League is what’s on Man City’s agenda. Pep and his boys have set their eyes on the prize and they’re not going to let a team like sporting crush their dreams.

That said, you can be 100% sure that Guardiola is going to go with his best XI for this duel. And when Man City’s best players are on the pitch, they usually win.

I know this, but so do bookmakers. This is why the odds on the visitors aren’t that attractive. If you would like to spice things up, betting on Manchester City (-1.5) might be the right choice. 10Bet is the sportsbook with the best odds for this wager at -118.

If you believe Sporting can score – these guys did it in every single home game since summer 2020 – betting on “both teams to score” a.k.a. BTS might be a good option. The odds on that happening are +105 at 888sport.