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Arsenal: Sporting CP star faces Champions League ban for quarter-final showdown
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- Arsenal: Sporting CP star faces Champions League ban for quarter-final showdown
Suspended: Morten Hjulmand (AFP via Getty Images)
Sporting CP will be without captain Morten Hjulmand for their Champions League quarter-final against Arsenal .
Sporting produced the result of the last-16, by overturning a 3-0 deficit from the first leg against Bodo/Glimt to end the Norwegian side's fairytale run in this season's competition.
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The Portuguese outfit, who finished seventh in the league phase, drew level on aggregate with 12 minutes remaining of normal time thanks to goals from Goncalo Inacio, Pedro Goncalves and Luis Javier Suarez.
Then Maximiliano Araujo and Rafael Nel scored at the start and the end of extra time to put the tie out of reach and set up a quarter-final showdown with Arsenal .
Unfortunately for Sporting, the one negative from an otherwise flawless evening was the yellow card shown to Hjulmand a minute into the second half.
With that being his fifth booking in the Champions League this season, he must now serve a one-game suspension.
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As a result, Hjulmand will be unavailable for selection when Arsenal travel to Lisbon for the first leg of their quarter-final showdown on either April 7.
Costly booking: Morten Hjulmand (AFP via Getty Images)
Mikel Arteta's side, who overcame Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 on aggregate , do not have any suspension concerns heading into the first leg as both Martin Zubimendi and Christian Norgaard avoided yellow cards.
That said, as yellow cards in the Champions League are not reset until after the quarter-final stage, it means another booking for Zubimendi or Norgaard against Sporting in either leg would earn them an automatic one-match ban.
Riccardo Calafiori , Gabriel, Havertz , Myles Lewis-Skelly , Noni Madueke , Gabriel Martinelli , William Saliba and Ben White are the Arsenal players on one yellow card heading into the Sporting double header.
