Porto vs Sporting Prediction: Home win and BTTS is a good 7/2 Double

Sporting travel to Porto for the second leg of the Portuguese Cup semis, with Sporting 1-0 up from the first leg. The match kicks off at 20:45 on Wednesday night.  

Jamie Pacheco has just the one tip for this one, and it’s the 7/2 that Porto win the game and that both teams score. You can check out why he thinks that along with all the team news, predicted lineups and stats here on Betfred Insights...

Porto  

Sunday was a good day for Porto, with Sporting losing and them winning 2-0 at home to Tondela. Just as Sporting missed a penalty (see below) so did they with Varela the guilty party, before goals from Veiga and V. Froholdt gave them a pretty comfortable 2-0 win.  

Earlier in the week, they were knocked out of Europe by Nottingham Forest with an early red card for former Southampton man Jan Bednarek for a really poor tackle, costing them dearly.  

But they will have picked up a few quid for getting that far and if they win the league, the season will be seen as a big success.  

Star striker Samu continues to be the big injury miss, while Luuk de Jong and Martim Fernandes are unlikely to play, as well.   

Sporting  

Sporting suffered a heartbreaking 2-1 defeat at home to Benfica on Sunday night, which put a huge dent in their chances of winning the Portuguese Superliga, especially with Porto winning 2-0 just a couple of hours later as we've seen.   

It wasn't just heartbreak for them, it was also heartbreak for us because we had 1-1 at 6/1 on the correct score market, and that Rafa winner came in second-half injury time. But these things happen.  

For what it's worth, Sporting can consider themselves a bit unlucky. They had 61% possession, and all the other main metrics were pretty tight between the two, so they didn't really deserve to lose it. Of course, it didn't help that our old pal Luis Suarez missed a penalty when it was 0-0.  

Good save yes, but it also wasn't the greatest penalty you'll ever see. For interest's sake, Suarez also missed a penalty when Sporting drew 1-1 with Porto in the league back in February (he did admittedly score from the rebound) and scored the winner when Sporting won the first leg of this Portuguese Cup semi-final back in early March. So one way or another, he's certainly been involved in the action.  

By the way, am I the only one who thinks it's odd that there was a six-week gap between the first and second legs of this tie? 

Either way, now that they're out of the Champions League, didn't win the League Cup, and have an uphill task to win the league, this match is extremely important to SCP.   

Joao Simoes picked up an injury on Sunday and is likely to miss the rest of the season.

Match Result/Match Result and Both Teams to Score    

Porto are 6/5 with Sporting 21/10 and 11/5 on the draw. So pretty much what we'd expect with home advantage, perhaps more of an advantage in Portugal than what it is in some other countries. And this despite that home loss for Sporting on Sunday, of course.  

Porto have been good of late and were a tad unlucky against Forest. Not only did they concede an absolute freak of an own goal in the first leg 1-1 draw but in my opinion, they probably would have gone through had it not been for that early sending off in the second leg.  

They beat an ever-tough Braga side 2-1 away a few weeks ago and also secured good 3-1 and 2-0 wins in the league against Estoril and Tondela after that. 

Sporting on the other hand seem to have run out of gas of late. They weren't great over two legs against Arsenal and weren't particularly good against Benfica, either. Maybe so many matches, including that tie against Bodo, have taken a lot out of them. Suarez, in particular, looks pretty jaded.  

So I think Porto could win here, but they've been conceding of late. The 2-0 win on Sunday was the first time in six matches they kept a clean sheet so even though 2-1 on the correct score market is tempting at 6/1, instead I'll take the 7/2 they win with both teams scoring, which also covers the likes of 3-1 and 3-2, as well as 2-1 of course.  

You can check out the latest Porto vs Sporting Odds and bet on this match over on betfred.com

To Score Anytime  

We highlighted Pedro Goncalves as a decent goalscorer selection ahead of that Benfica game and just because he didn't score in it, doesn't mean he's not a good choice. He was 2/1 ahead of that one and is a bigger 13/5 this time around. Suarez is 15/8 but hasn't been at his best and has missed a couple of penalties recently, so he may be relieved of his duties. 

For Porto, William Gomes has 12 in 36, so that decent record suggests 11/4 is an ok price. Bednarek often saves his goals for the biggest games, so 14/1 he scores or even 28/1 he scores first may see some business.  

But we're happy to just go with the one bet for this game.   

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