Sporting Lisbon will be our next opponents after they despatched Legia Warsaw 3-2 on aggregate to book their place in the last 16, a day after the Blues had knocked out FC Porto. They had reached the knock-out stages after topping Group D, three points ahead of Lazio.
The first leg will be away at the 50,000-capacity Estádio José Alvalade on Thursday, 8th March with the return at the Etihad Stadium on Thursday, 15th March. The away leg will kick off at 18.00 local time, with the home game starting at 20.05 and we will announce ticket details in the very near future.
Sporting have one European honour, the 1964 European Cup Winners’ Cup, in addition to their 19 Portuguese titles. Legendary former City manager and coach Malcolm Allison guided Sporting to one of those title triumphs, as well as the Portuguese Cup and Super Cup, during his stint as manager in the early 1980s.
The two clubs have never met competitively but Sporting ran out 2-0 winners in a pre-season friendly in New York in July 2010.
