Manchester City vs Sparta Prague Prediction & Betting Tips (23 October)

Winner of the Champions League for the first time in 2023, Manchester City was unable to retain its title last year by falling on penalties in the quarter-finals against the insolent success of Real Madrid. This year, Pep Guardiola's players set out to conquer this trophy a little too much, settling for a rather disappointing draw against Inter 0-0. But they then accelerated by showing a lot of authority on the field of Slovan Bratislava 0-4 during a meeting which could really have turned into a correction. In the Premier League, the Sky Blues spent the international break in 2nd place in the standings, a short distance behind Liverpool despite their last difficultly won victory against Fulham 3-2. Before this meeting, the Citizen will travel to Wolverhampton.

Sparta Prague, for their part, returns to the Champions League after many years of absence since they have often been eliminated during summer qualifying in recent years. Even if they had not played in the most beautiful competition for a very long time, the Czechs were not shy during the first days, winning very logically against Salzburg 3-0 then going for a very good point on the Stuttgart field 1-1 during the 2nd day. At the same time, Lars Friis' men still lost a lot of ground on their neighbor and rival Slavia Prague in the race for the title in the Czech championship by losing in quick succession to Sigma Olomouc 2-3 then in the derby against Slavia 2-1. They will try to bounce back against Slovan Liberec before this perilous trip to Manchester. 

Absent from the international gathering with Belgium, playing master De Bruyne could be back for this meeting. However, this will not be the case for one of the best defensive midfielders in the world, Rodri, whose season is over. Dutch international Aké and promising winger Bobb are also on the flank at the moment. This Manchester team obviously has exceptional offensive potential, led by the Norwegian Erling Haaland, who has already scored 10 goals in the Premier League and just one in C1. Bernardo Silva, Foden, Doku, Grealish and even the young McAtee, scorer on the last day against Slovan Bratislava, should also appear in the citizen group. As in the first two days, the defender recruited this summer Cobbaut should withdraw from this trip to the Etihad Stadium.

This should also be the case for full-back Garcia, who arrived from Bilbao this summer. On the other hand, the Czechs should be able to count on wingers Birmancevic (3 goals and 2 assists in the league), Krasniqi (3 goals) and Haraslin (3 goals in the league) as well as striker Olatunji (3 goals in the league, 1 goal and 1 assist in C1). In the midfield, we also find the former Ajaccian Laci who scored on the first day. Finally, against Stuttgart, it was Finnish midfielder Kairinen who was able to equalize with a magnificent free kick.