PICK OF THE DAY
Sporting - Atl Madrid
Tip : GG (both to score)
Odd : 2.00
FT : 1:0 Lost
It’s fair to say that Sporting’s first leg defeat at Atletico Madrid was pretty memorable. The manner of the Lions’ defeat led to their President slating the team on Facebook. After reading his comments, 19 players demanded an apology, which led to the President saying all of them were suspended, which would have left them with six players for Sunday’s meeting with Pacos de Ferreira. In the end, no one was suspended, and the Portuguese giants ran out 2-0 victors at the weekend. However, that has bound to have left a mark on the club going forward.
It’s not the best way to warm up for a tricky second leg tie with Atletico on Thursday night. The Spanish side routinely won the first encounter 2-0, and that’s left them set up to progress to the last four this week. The tournament favourites have been in excellent form since dropping in to this competition, after a poor group stage campaign in the Champions League. Diego Simeone’s men have won five straight games in the Europa League, racking up 15 goals in the process.
A large part of that scoring form has been Antoine Griezmann, who is certainly putting himself in the shop window ahead of a big move in a couple of months. With 12 goals in his last nine club games, he’s certainly building up momentum ahead of what should be a huge Summer for the French forward. He scored once again on Sunday against Real Madrid, while he has three strikes in the Europa League this term. That includes goals in both of their away trips, along with a strike in the first leg of this quarter final. With that in mind, we see Griezmann getting a goal in this visit to Lisbon.
With Atletico providing an attacking threat here, that makes things even more difficult for Sporting. They’ll need four goals if Atleti get one, but will the Lions offer enough going forward? The Portuguese side have nine goals since dropping down from the Champions League, while they managed to score home and away to Juventus and Olympiakos in Europe’s top tier competition.
The hosts have scored in 18 consecutive home matches in all competitions, while they’ve hit 13 goals in their last five Europa League matches at this ground. With Atleti conceding in trips to Lokomotiv Moscow and FC Copenhagen, we can’t see them keeping a clean sheet against the toughest side they’ve faced in their Europa League run so far. We’re backing both teams to score in this clash, along with a 1-1 final score.
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