Atletico have become one of the Champions League’s biggest teams over the past few seasons, however, this season has taken a poor direction after a poor start to the season saw the leave the Champions League in the group stages after they could only manage to come 3rd behind AS Roma and Chelsea. There is 9 points gap separating them and Barcelona in the La Liga and they have been eliminated from the Copa Del Rey, Diego Simeone’s men know this is their only hope of finishing the season with a trophy.
Atleti won Deportivo 1-0 at the weekend, a win that was their 12th from their last 14 games, this run included Europa League wins over Lokomotiv Moscow and Copenhagen. They have 14 wins from their last 16 games at the Wanda Metropolitana, keeping 13 clean sheets, which makes it almost mission impossible for Sporting Lisbon to get a good result here.
Sporting Lisbon haven’t been on their very best most recently as they have lost 3 of their last 6 competitive games including to Braga at the weekend and to Viktoria Plzen in their Europa League last round. As a matter of fact, they have lost 5 of their last 8 games on the road and they have not netted a goal in 3 of those games.
