Kicking off the Champions League new-look league phase, Sporting Clube de Portugal come Lille to the Estadio Jose Alvalade on Tuesday.
Sporting have started the 2024/25 campaign superbly. The Portuguese champions are firing on all cylinders under boss Ruben Amorim – winning all five of their league games, scoring an incredible 19 goals.
There is no denying that Sporting carry serious threat in attack, featuring Pedro Goncalves, Francisco Trincao and of course, Viktor Gyokeres. The trio are enough to cause any defence in Europe problems and will be eyeing up this Lille side as targets to exploit yet again.
The Alvalade is a fortress for hosts, having won each of the last 19 league games on home soil. In fact, they’ve lost just one of their last 28 league games. Amorim will now look to continue this outstanding record European football’s top table.
A man who has been very much in the media spotlight, and rightly so, is Swedish forward Gyokeres. He has scored 11 goals and five assists for club and country already this season. Gyokeres has scored eight goals in just five games for Sporting term, scoring in every single game – including a hat-trick vs Farense. He is on absolute fire, with the biggest teams in the world eyeing him up on this big stage.
With all the noise around the Swede and his quite remarkable start to the season, I am backing Gyokeres to get his UCL campaign up and running in front of a sold out Estadio Jose Alvalade – packed with passionate Sporting Lisbon fans.
