Meet Bodø/Glimt: Sporting’s next Champions League opponents | OneFootball

The opponent for Sporting in the UEFA Champions League round of 16 has been determined. The draw, held on Friday morning in Nyon, Switzerland, revealed that the Lions will face the surprising Bodø/Glimt, a Norwegian team that qualified for this stage via the 'play-off', where they eliminated former finalist Inter with numbers that leave no room for doubt: 5-2 on aggregate (3-1 in Norway and 2-1 in Milan).

This will be the first time Sporting faces Bodo/Glimt, a team that has already made its mark, three times, one of them indirectly, in Portuguese football. In October 2021, during the group stage of the Europa League, Bodo/Glimt shocked the world by thrashing José Mourinho's Roma 6-1. Later, at the Olympic Stadium in the Italian capital, another feat with a 2-2 draw.

But for the club from the city located furthest north in the entire Champions League, already within the Arctic Circle, the duel with Sporting will be the third recent encounter with Portuguese teams and the record is entirely favorable to Bodø/Glimt. They debuted in the UEFA Europa League 2024/2025 league phase by hosting and defeating Porto 3-2 on September 25, 2024, and less than a month later (on October 23), they went to Braga to defeat the Minho Warriors 2-1.

However, while Bodø/Glimt represents a first for the Lions, the same cannot be said for encounters between Sporting and Norwegian clubs. Indeed, this will be the fourth Norwegian club to face the green and whites in history, following the unforgettable (for the wrong reasons) Viking in the UEFA Cup 1999/2000, which shocked Sporting fans with a 3-0 victory in the first leg of the first round, a result the Lions could not overturn in the second match, winning only 1-0 at Alvalade.

Before this confrontation, there was a Sporting - Lyon match in the Cup Winners' Cup 1971/72, with two Portuguese victories (4-0 at Alvalade and 3-0 in Norway), and later (the last duel between the Lions and Norwegians) there was a double encounter in the group stage of the UEFA Europa League 2019/20 with Rosenborg, also with a double victory for Sporting (1-0 at home; 2-0 away).

Check out this goal from Bodo:

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.