Athletic Bilbao vs Sporting CP Prediction: Back Sporting to avoid defeat on the road

Sporting travel to Bilbao on Wednesday with a 20:00 kick-off, the match being shown live on Discovery+, and it’s a match where there’s plenty to play for, as explained in our preview.    

Jamie Pacheco isn’t normally in the business of tipping odds-on shots but there are two here that are simply too good to turn down. Let's check out Jamie'd Athletic Bilbao vs Sporting Predictions...  

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Athletic Bilbao vs Sporting Preview:

Athletic Bilbao  

Bilbao will secure a place in the play-off round with a win over Sporting Lisbon, provided that at least two of the other nine teams on 8, 9 or 10 points fail to get the results they need to finish above Athletic Bilbao. Now you know.  

Bilbao, who have very rarely been in this competition over the years, have been 'consistently inconsistent' in this campaign with two wins, two draws and three defeats.  

A quick look at the La Liga table suggests they've been a bit 'vanilla' in that one, too; they're 13th.  

They're not in particularly good form at the moment. Across La Liga matches, a Cup game, and European football, they've won just two of their last seven, including getting hammered 5-0 by Barcelona in early January; ouch.  

We do, however, note that they beat Atalanta 3=2 away last week, which is pretty impressive. 

Sporting  

Sporting are already assured of at least a play-off spot but need to beat Athletic Bilbao to keep alive their hopes of reaching the Round of 16 via a top-eight finish.  

A win would see them move above at least one of Paris Saint-Germain or Newcastle, who face each other, but qualification would still depend on results elsewhere. Specifically, at least four of the other eight teams on 13, 14 or 15 points would need either to fail to win (including Real Madrid and Liverpool) or win by a margin that does not overturn Sporting Lisbon's goal-difference advantage. 

So plenty to play for here.  

If you needed further proof that this is a serious team, then look no further than their 2-1 win over PSG last week.  

They beat Arouca at the weekend by the same scoreline, with that man Luis Suárez scoring both goals.  

Match Winner Odds/Double Chance   

Bilbao are 23/20, Sporting are 9/4, and the draw is 5/2.  

That's a pretty poor price on Bilbao, if we're honest.  

Yes, they're at home - not that home advantage seems to make much of a difference these days - but they're also five points worse off than Sporting are at this time in the CL and not in good form, as we've just seen.  

We could look at 'clever' ways to get around the theory that they're under-priced, but I'm not sure it's worth the bother.  

I don't normally tip odds-on shots, but the 8/13 that Sporting will win or draw is too good to pass up on the Double Chance market.  

*You can check out Betfred's full market on this match by visiting our Athletic Bilbao vs Sporting Odds page on betfred.com

Over/Under 2.5 Goals  

Speaking of odds-on shots, here's another that makes a lot of sense to back: over 2.5 goals.  

Six of Sporting's last seven across all competitions have gone over 2.5 goals, as have (somewhat freakishly), six of Bilbao's last seven.  

Here are Bilbao's last seven scores: 2-1, 1-1, 5-0, 3-4, 3-2, 2-3, 2-1.  

So they love a goal-filled game over at Bilbao, don't they?  

And I know what you're thinking: why not go for over 3.5 goals at a considerably bigger 2/1 than the 4/5 on offer for over 2.5 goals?  

I might regret this and see it as a missed opportunity, but then again, we'd be kicking ourselves if it has exactly three goals, which would obviously make all the difference between a winning bet and a losing one. 

So in this case, it may pay to err on the side of caution. Over 2.5 goals it is.   

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Jamie Pacheco Football P/L 2025 (Excludes 3-3-3 column):