We look ahead to Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg with our Sporting CP vs Arsenal prediction and preview. Can Mikel Arteta’s side survive a tough test in Lisbon?
Sporting CP vs Arsenal: Key Stats
The Opta supercomputer gives Arsenal a convincing 53.1% chance of winning this first leg in Lisbon against Sporting CP.
Sporting CP have never beaten Arsenal in seven previous attempts (D4 L3), including a 5-1 home defeat in last season’s Champions League
Viktor Gyökeres could become the first player to score both for and against Sporting CP in the UEFA Champions League.
Mikel Arteta will hope Arsenal can lay down a marker when they visit Sporting CP for the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie on Tuesday.
Just a few weeks ago, the Premier League leaders may have been eyeing an unlikely quadruple, but have since lost the EFL Cup final to Manchester City before being dumped out of the FA Cup last eight on Saturday. Shea Charles’ late goal earned Championship side Southampton a 2-1 quarter-final win over Arteta’s team.
Arsenal have reached the Champions League quarter-finals after brushing aside Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 on aggregate in the round of 16. Goals from Eberechi Eze and Declan Rice secured a 2-0 second-leg victory last month to seal their progression.
That kept Arsenal as the favourites to win the 2025-26 Champions League, according to Opta’s tournament predictions, which gives them 27.7% chance of glory. They also have a healthy 77.7% likelihood of making the last four.
However, Sporting will head into this clash at José Alvalade with real optimism after pulling off one of the great European comebacks in the last round. The Portuguese side lost 3-0 to Bodø/Glimt in the first leg, but a remarkable 5-0 home win after extra-time in the second leg sent them through.
Bodo Glimt 3-0 Sporting
Sporting 5-0 Bodo Glimt
Rui Borges’ side became just the fifth team in Champions League history to overturn a first-leg deficit of three or more goals, and will now feature in the last eight of this competition for the first time in history. They had featured in the European Cup quarter-finals once before, losing to Real Sociedad in 1982-83 before the rebranding.
Go Deeper
Home has truly been where the heart is for Sporting, too, given they have won all five games on their own patch in this season’s edition. This run marks the longest winning streak by a Portuguese side in the competition since Porto managed six in a row in December 1999.
Arsenal striker Viktor Gyökeres will also be a familiar face in Lisbon. The Swede scored six goals in eight appearances for Sporting in last season’s Champions League and could become the first player to score both for and against the Portuguese side in the competition.
Down the other end of the pitch, Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya is arguably the best in Europe. Based on the expected goals of shots on target faced, excluding own goals, his +7.6 differential (12 conceded from 19.6 xG on target) is better than any other goalkeeper in UEFA’s top competition since the start of last season.
David Raya UCL Stats at Arsenal
But Luis Suárez will be out to find a way past Raya. The Colombian has scored five times for Sporting in this European campaign and could equal the club record for most goals in a single European Cup/Champions League season, set by Gyökeres’ six in 2024-25.
Suárez should be capably supplied as well. Sporting’s Gonçalo Inácio made 41 line-breaking passes across both games against Bodø/Glimt in the previous round, marking the most by any player in a knockout stage tie in the 2025-26 competition so far.
However, many teams have tried and failed to crack Arsenal’s defence. They have the lowest per-game averages in this Champions League campaign for goals conceded (0.5), xG against (0.75) and shots on target faced (2.7).
Arsenal Best Defence UEFA Champions League 2025-26
Arteta’s side have also trailed for the fewest minutes of any team in this edition (42:48), though Borges may be telling his Sporting side that entire period came in their round of 16 first leg away at Leverkusen.
And there may be some nerves for Arsenal, who have been eliminated from five of their eight Champions League quarter-final ties. They did beat Real Madrid at this stage last season, though, and are looking to reach the semi-finals in consecutive campaigns for the first time.
Arteta will have to sweat over the fitness of Gabriel Magalhães, Piero Hincapié, Rice, Jurriën Timber, Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard. Eze and Mikel Merino are out for the longer term.
Sporting CP vs Arsenal Head-to-Head
Arsenal had five different scorers as they thrashed Sporting 5-1 in Lisbon in their last meeting back in the 2024-25 league phase of this competition.
However, the Gunners have never won away against Portuguese opposition in the knockout stages of a major European competition before (D4 L2), most recently losing 1-0 to Porto in the 2023-24 Champions League last 16.
That said, Sporting have also never beaten Arsenal in seven attempts (D4 L3).
They did eliminate them from the 2022-23 UEFA Europa League via a penalty shootout, however, after a 3-3 draw on aggregate across their round-of-16 tie.
Sporting CP vs Arsenal Prediction
Sporting CP vs Arsenal Prediction
Arsenal boast a strong 53.1% chance of victory in this first leg, according to 10,000 pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
Arteta may even consider taking the draw, coming in 24.4% of data-led scenarios, while a memorable Sporting win was rated as a 22.5% likelihood.
Sporting vs Arsenal Predicted Lineups
Sporting CP: Rui Silva, Georgios Vagiannidis, Eduardo Quaresma, Gonçalo Inácio, Maxi Araújo, Hidemasa Morita, Daniel Bragança, Geny Catamo, Trincão, Pote, Luis Suárez.
Head coach: Rui Borges
Arsenal: David Raya, Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, William Saliba, Riccardo Calafiori, Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka, Viktor Gyökeres.
Head coach: Mikel Arteta
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 15,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off in Portugal on Tuesday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
UEFA Champions League Stats Opta
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