Sporting CP vs LASK Linz
Our model puts a Sporting CP win at 91.2% in this UEFA Champions League fixture — the clearest call on this fixture. Expected goals run 3.78 to 0.47.
Where we disagree with the market
Bookmakers price Sporting CP at 1.26, which implies about 79.4%. Our model has it at 91.2% — 11.8 points higher. That is a wide gap, and it is worth being plain about what it means: it is not a claim that the price is wrong and we are right. It means two methods that usually agree have landed far apart on this one, and only the result will say which of them read it better.
The ratings gap
Sporting CP carry a rating of 1769 against 1484 for LASK Linz, a gap of 286 points. On our scale that is the difference between a side that controls most of its fixtures and one that has to earn each of them. It is also the single largest input into the probabilities above.
Attack against defence
The single rating hides where the mismatch actually sits. Splitting it, Sporting CP's attack should find room against LASK Linz's defence, by 245 points. That is the mechanism behind the expected-goals line rather than a separate opinion about it.
Sporting CP are hard to beat
Sporting CP have gone 28 matches without losing, though without stringing wins together. That pattern tends to push draw probability up more than it pushes a win probability.
Finding the target
Sporting CP hits the target more often than almost anyone: 43.4% of their shots are on goal over their last matches. The average across the sides we have figures for is 34.1%. Accuracy is not the same as scoring — it says how much of a side's shooting is worth a goalkeeper's attention, which is the part that does not swing as wildly from week to week as goals do.
How often they shoot
Sporting CP take 15.2 shots a match against an average of 11.9. Volume like that usually means territory rather than precision, and it is why a side can dominate a match and still not win it.
A disciplinary record worth knowing
Sporting CP collect 3.8 cards a match, on 11.8 fouls a match, against an average of 2.2. Cards are the one thing here that can change a match rather than describe it: a sending-off rewrites every number on this page.
Behind the defence
58.3% of the shots on target Sporting CP face do not end up in the net, against 67.3% for the sides we measure. That is low enough to matter, and it is the kind of number that flatters or punishes a side's record without saying much about how it plays.
A high-scoring home side
One model here does nothing but estimate how likely the home side is to score four goals or more, and on this fixture it reads 88.8%. Across our settled fixtures that happens about 8% of the time, so this is well above ordinary. It says nothing about who wins — a side can score four and still be caught — but a match where one team is expected to run up a total is one where the scoreline is much harder to call than the result.