Still winless in the Champions League since the departure of Ruben Amorim, Sporting Lisbon welcome Borussia Dortmund to the Estadio Jose Alvalade for Tuesday's playoff first leg.
Four places and 13 points separated the two clubs in the league phase table, as BVB came within a whisker of a top-eight finish while their hosts only just kept their continental adventure going.
Match preview
As erstwhile manager Amorim struggles to turn Manchester United's fortunes around, Sporting have also seen their powers fade since the exit of the 40-year-old, who was seemingly the glue that held everything together at the Estadio Jose Alvalade.
After taking 10 points from their opening four Champions League matches to enter the top-eight conversation, Sporting failed to triumph in any of their last four games in the opening phase; none of the 24 teams to have advanced to the knockouts are on a longer winless run.
Arsenal, Club Brugge and RB Leipzig all condemned Sporting to defeat in that time, but a 1-1 draw with Bologna on matchday eight - where 19-year-old Danish forward Conrad Harder was the hero with a second-half equaliser - sent the Portuguese giants through to the playoffs on goal difference.
New boss Rui Borges has been able to steady the ship slightly, though, and Sporting were mere moments away from a hard-fought win over Primeira Liga rivals Porto in Friday's blockbuster clash, only for the Dragons to equalise in the fourth minute of second-half injury time.
Reeling from that gut-wrenching stalemate - where they also finished the game with nine men - Sporting now make a welcome return to their Alvalade headquarters, where they are unbeaten in their last seven matches in all tournaments and have only dropped points against Bologna in that time.
Also adjusting to life with a new face at the helm, Borussia Dortmund were under the wing of Nuri Sahin's temporary successor - Mike Tullberg - for their most recent Champions League contest, where Serhou Guirassy was at the double in a 3-1 success over Shakhtar Donetsk.
With five wins and three losses on their record from the league phase, Dortmund pipped 2023-24 final foes Real Madrid to a top-10 finish in the league phase, although it was the top eight positions that last season's beaten finalists had their sights set on.
Since last taking to the field in Europe, BVB have welcomed ex-Bayern Munich boss Niko Kovac into the dugout, but his reign got off to the worst possible start; Dortmund suffered a 2-1 home loss to Stuttgart in the Bundesliga on Saturday, their fifth defeat from eight in all tournaments.
Languishing in the bottom half of the German top-flight table, Dortmund have their lack of defensive discipline to blame for their predicament, as Saturday's loss to Stuttgart made it 13 games without a clean sheet across all competitions since easing past Dinamo Zagreb 3-0 in November.
On the other side of the coin, 22 goals scored in the UCL league phase was the second-best attacking record behind Barcelona's 28, offering an out-of-sorts Dortmund a sliver of hope as they aim to avenge their 3-1 loss to Sporting from their last head-to-head in November 2021.
Team News
Sporting's stalemate with Bologna on the final league phase matchday saw Morten Hjulmand pick up his third yellow card of the tournament, and as bookings are not wiped until the quarter-finals, the Dane must serve a suspension this week.
Hjulmand joins Pedro Goncalves (muscle), Joao Simoes (unspecified) and Nuno Santos (ACL) on the Sporting sidelines for Tuesday's first leg, but even though Matheus Reis and Ousmane Diomande both saw red against Porto, they are fine to feature in the Champions League.
The teenage Harder also started up front on Friday evening following a thigh injury to Viktor Gyokeres, but the hosts' Swedish sensation should be drafted back into the starting lineup on Tuesday, where he seeks to build on an astounding record of 34 goals from as many matches this season.
Meanwhile, Dortmund's deadline-day signing Carney Chukwuemeka was unable to make his debut for the German giants against Stuttgart after suffering a knock to the knee in training, but he has trained ahead of the first leg.
However, Ramy Bensebaini (muscle) is a new absentee for the visitors, who are also missing Felix Nmecha (knee) for another few weeks but otherwise have a clean bill of health.
Matching Robert Lewandowski with a tournament-high nine goals in the league phase, Guirassy could now join the Pole and Erling Haaland as just the third Dortmund player to score as many as 10 goals in one Champions League season; no BVB player has ever managed 11 in a single campaign.
Sporting Lisbon possible starting lineup:
Israel; Fresneda, Diomande, Inacio, Araujo; Braganca, Debast, Morita; Trincao, Gyokeres, Quenda
Borussia Dortmund possible starting lineup:
Kobel; Ryerson, Can, Schlotterbeck, Svensson; Sabitzer, Gross; Adeyemi, Brandt, Gittens; Guirassy
We say: Sporting Lisbon 1-1 Borussia Dortmund
With both sides still adapting to recent managerial changes and struggling to string a consistent run together, Tuesday's first leg has a draw written all over it.
Kovac cannot fix Dortmund's leaky defence overnight, but Gyokeres may not be firing on all cylinders after his recent injury, so we cannot see either side claiming an advantage before the return fixture.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
body check tags ::
Previews by email
