Sporting – Midtjylland

Fans will not see more than three goals scored in Lisbon

Lisbon will host one of the matches in the Europa League 1/16 finals on Thursday. Local Sporting and visiting Midtjylland are not particularly trusted by bookmakers. The Portuguese side's chances of clinching the title are rated at 35, which puts them in 12th place on the list of contenders. The Danish team is at odds of 150. Only Ferencvaros have lower odds. The Lisbon club made it to the Europa League play-offs from the Champions League group stage, where they were only ahead of the French side with Tottenham, Eintracht, and Marseille. Midtjylland were defeated in the Champions League qualifiers by another Lisbon club, Benfica, at the start of the European season. The Danes have since shown their mettle in the surprising Group F of the Europa League, where all the teams have eight points each, and thanks to the best goal difference, they finished second, pushing Lazio into the Conference League. Before the upcoming meeting, bookmakers consider Sporting to be the clear favorite, offering to bet on its victory at odds of 1.35. The Lisbon team won their opening two matches in the Champions League group stage, but their lack of class has prevented them from building on their success. In the championship, Sporting have the same story. "The Greens and Whites can lose at home to Porto and then defeat Braga 5-0 a few days later. Or lose away to Maritim, and a week later narrowly defeat the strongest current representative of the Primera League. Sporting are stronger than their upcoming opponents, but it is difficult to say in what condition the club will appear on Thursday. Especially when you consider that the club had a match against Porto on Sunday. Midtjylland played their last official match in mid-November 2022. Meanwhile, since the beginning of February, the team has been in Portugal to take part in the Atlantic Cup, at the same time preparing for the upcoming game in the capital of that country. In the Europa League group stage, the Danes have played three away games, scoring one point. Two of them ended with less than four goals, one with more. Sporting will undoubtedly dominate the field, but this team will not go out of their way to defeat a defensive opponent. We're betting that the fans won't see more than three goals in this match.