By Mark Heys
March 5 2008

Another full house is expected at the Reebok Stadium tommorow night when Bolton Wanderers welcome Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon for the first leg of their last sixteen encounter in the UEFA Cup.

Wanderers have once again slashed ticket prices following on from the success of the last European home game against Atletico Madrid and a similar turnout is expected for the Lisbon game.

Bolton's home advantage proved crucial in the last round and Gary Megson will be hoping that his side can take a good result over to Portugal for the second leg in just over a week from now.

Sporting destroyed Swiss club Basle over two legs last month in contrast to Bolton who's emphasis was built more upon defending the lead they had developed.

Megson will be without the suspended El-Hadji Diouf for the first leg after the Senegal striker picked up a booking against Atletico so veteran Stelios Giannakopoulos is pushing for a starting role.

Gretar Steinsson, Tamir Cohen and Grzegorz Rasiak are all ineligable to play and the likes of Gavin McCann, Heidar Helguson and Ricardo Vaz-Te have been struggling with injury.

Skipper Kevin Nolan is likely to play however, despite withdrawing from the action at half time during the weekend defeat against Liverpool in the Premier League.

Sporting coach Paulo Bento is without striker Liedson after the Brazilian picked up an ankle injury at the weekend against Benfica but midfielder Leandro Romagnoli is fit enough to travel to England.

LAST TIME WE MET:

N/A

PLAYED FOR BOTH

Mario Jardel

DID YOU KNOW?:

This is the third time that Bolton have faced Portuguese opposition in Europe. In October 2005 they forced a draw with Vitoria Guimaraes and earlier this season they drew 1-1 with Sporting Braga.

Mario Jardel played only seven league games for Bolton in 2003 without a scoring a goal but his time with Sporting was much more productive when he hit an astonishing 53 goals in 49 games.

Bolton have only lost once when playing in Europe, this came against Olympique Marseille at the Stade Velodrome in February 2006.