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UEFA has now announced the referees for the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, and the official chosen to oversee **Sporting v Arsenal** is **Daniel Siebert**.
The 41-year-old German has already refereed Sporting this season, in the 1-1 draw with **Juventus** in Turin.
His assistants will be **Jan Seidel** and **Rafael Foltyn**, while **Daniel Schlager** has been selected as fourth official.
**Bastian Danker** will be on VAR duty and **Sören Storks** will be AVAR to complete the German team.
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Siebert has taken charge of seven Champions League games this season, issuing 36 yellows and two reds. On average, he gives around 23 fouls per game in Europe, almost 1.5 more than he awards in the Bundesliga. He also averages just 0.16 penalty per game in the competition, half the rate of his Bundesliga refereeing.
Interestingly, he has refereed three English sides already in the Champions League this season (**Chelsea**, **Spurs** and **Newcastle**) and gave more yellow cards in those games than in any of his others (8, 7, 6 v 5, 5, 4, 2).
Siebert refereed Arsenal in last season’s Champions League when they won 3-0 at home against **Dinamo Zagreb**. In that game he issued four yellows, with two going to each side (**Raheem Sterling** and **Jurrien Timber** booked for Arsenal). He was also in charge for Sporting’s 4-1 thrashing of City the gameweek before that match.
The Arsenal squad are expected to train at London Colney at 11.30am on Tuesday. At the end of the session, **Mikel Arteta** will confirm the squad, and the travelling party will then fly to Lisbon in the early afternoon for Wednesday’s game.
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