PSV – Sporting

PSV hosts Sporting CP at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven in a game from Group D of Europa League. These two teams are the major favourites for the first two places in the group, so it’d be interesting to see who will occupy the top after the first round.

PSV entered Europa League after being eliminated by Basel in the Champions League qualifiers. During the playoffs for reaching the group stage, Mark van Bommel’s boys did a terrific job against Cyprus’ Apollon, beating them twice with a goal difference of 7-0. The Dutch side is probably still dissapointed because of its Champions League exit, but it is what it is, right?

In the Dutch Eredivisie PSV are in a good shape, currently enjoying a run of four consecutive wins. Right now the Boeren are second in the standings with 13 points won so far, having the same amount of points as the leader Ajax, but a little bit worse goal difference.

In their last league clash PSV hosted Vitesse at home and celebrated a convincing 5-0 win. It was a pure one man show by the 20-years old striker Donyell Malen, who scored all of the five goals in the game.

Sporting CP will play their first European game for the season, qualifying directly for Europa League’s group stage. In the Portuguese Primeira Liga the Lisboa Lions already played five games, winning just two of them, doing two draws and losing once. Right now Sporting are five points behind the surprising leader Famalicao.

In their last league game Sporting visited Boavista and won only a point after a 1-1 draw. Marlon scored an early goal for Boavista, but Bruno Fernandes equalised for Sporting after the halftime break.

We think that PSV and Sporting CP will offer us a great game at Thursday. These two teams would like to go far in the competition, so let’s see what they can do.