We said: Benfica 1-1 Sporting Lisbon
Losing Palhinha and Coates is a big blow for Sporting considering their importance, but the Green and Whites will still fancy their chances of picking up a positive result. It would not be a surprise to see a home win or an away win here, but we have ultimately settled on a low-scoring draw in Lisbon.
Read more.Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Benfica win with a probability of 47.06%. A win for Sporting Lisbon had a probability of 29.16% and a draw had a probability of 23.8%.
The most likely scoreline for a Benfica win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.37%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (8.53%) and 2-0 (7.25%). The likeliest Sporting Lisbon win was 1-2 (7.12%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.01%). The actual scoreline of 1-3 was predicted with a 3.1% likelihood.