Sporting CP v Arsenal background

With maximum points from their opening two fixtures in UEFA Europa League Group E, Sporting CP and Arsenal already have the round of 32 in their sights as they go head to head in Lisbon.

• Arsenal have run up seven goals – the joint highest tally in the competition, alongside Group A's Bayer Leverkusen – in beating Vorskla Poltava at home (4-2) and Qarabağ away (3-0). Sporting followed their opening 2-0 home win against the champions of Azerbaijan by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat with two late goals at Vorskla (2-1).

Previous meetings
• Despite the clubs' considerable European pedigree, they have never met in UEFA competition. They did, however, come face to face in the 1969/70 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup second round, with Arsenal winning 3-0 on aggregate (0-0 away, 3-0 home) en route to lifting the trophy.

• Sporting's 21 UEFA fixtures against English clubs have yielded nine wins and nine defeats, seven of the victories at home including both of their previous engagements in the UEFA Europa League – 3-0 against Everton in the 2009/10 round of 32 and 1-0 versus Manchester City in the 2011/12 round of 16, the Lisbon club winning both ties.

• Arsenal have never won in five UEFA visits to Portugal (D2 L3), scoring just two goals – both, curiously, by a player called Campbell (striker Kevin against Benfica in the 1991/92 European Champion Clubs' Cup; defender Sol against Porto in the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League).

Form guide
Sporting
• Sporting finished third in the 2017/18 Portuguese Liga. They suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Aves in the Portuguese Cup final, but nevertheless claimed a place in the UEFA Europa League group stage.

• The Lisbon club have been regular participants in the UEFA Europa League since its inception in 2009/10, featuring in the competition proper in seven previous seasons and the group stage in five of those, most recently in 2015/16. Semi-finalists in 2011/12, they reached the quarter-finals last season after transferring from the UEFA Champions League group stage.

• Sporting have won all of their last three European home games without conceding. They have only ever lost once at home in the UEFA Europa League group stage and twice in the competition proper, their overall record in Lisbon standing at W18 D8 L2.

Arsenal
• The Gunners finished sixth in the 2017/18 Premier League – their lowest final placing under Arsène Wenger in his swansong season as manager after 22 years. It earned them a second successive qualification for the UEFA Europa League group stage.

• UEFA Champions League ever-presents for 19 successive seasons until last term, Arsenal reached the UEFA Europa League semi-finals at the first attempt, going out to eventual winners Atlético Madrid.

• The 1999/2000 UEFA Cup runners-up won 1-0 away at Crvena zvezda on matchday three last season to make it nine points out of nine. Their away record in the UEFA Europa League is W5 D1 L2, with 15 goals scored and just five conceded.

Links and trivia 
• Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno helped Bayer Leverkusen inflict a rare UEFA Europa League home defeat on Sporting in the 2015/16 round of 16, winning 1-0 in Lisbon and then 3-1 in Germany to eliminate the Portuguese club.

• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sokratis Papastathopoulos, now team-mates at Arsenal, played together in a 2-1 win for Borussia Dortmund at Sporting in the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League group stage, the Gabon forward scoring one of the goals.

• Sporting trio Nani (Manchester United), Sebastián Coates (Liverpool, Sunderland) and Radosav Petrović (Blackburn) have all faced Arsenal in the Premier League, Nani winning the competition four times and scoring a memorable goal against the Gunners in a famous 8-2 win at Old Trafford in August 2011.

• Coates and Arsenal's Lucas Torreira are Uruguayan internationals; Torreira is also a former team-mate of Sporting's Bruno Fernandes (Sampdoria, 2016/17).

• Jérémy Mathieu (Sporting) and Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) have played together for France.

The coaches
• A UEFA Cup runner-up as Sporting CP coach in 2004/05, José Peseiro returned to the club in the summer of 2018 as the replacement for Jorge Jesus. A lower-league forward, he was Carlos Queiroz's assistant at Real Madrid prior to his first spell at Sporting and later took charge of several European and Middle Eastern clubs as well as coaching the Saudi Arabia national side from 2009–11. His last European involvement was with Braga in the 2016/17 UEFA Europa League.

• After two years with Paris Saint-Germain that yielded seven domestic trophies, Unai Emery was appointed as Arsenal manager in May 2018, replacing the long-serving Wenger. The Spaniard oversaw Sevilla's historic hat-trick of successes in the UEFA Europa League from 2013/14 to 2015/16, having assumed control following a four-year tenure at Valencia and a brief stint at Spartak Moskva. He has been in charge of more UEFA Europa League games than any other coach.