Arsenal now know who will take charge of their Champions League quarter-final first leg in Lisbon, with UEFA confirming an all-German officiating team for the meeting with Sporting.
UEFA has now announced the referees for the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, and the official chosen to oversee Sporting v Arsenal is Daniel Siebert.
The 41-year-old German has already refereed Sporting this season, in the 1-1 draw with Juventus in Turin.
His assistants will be Jan Seidel and Rafael Foltyn, while Daniel Schlager has been selected as fourth official.
Bastian Danker will be on VAR duty and Sören Storks will be AVAR to complete the German team.
Siebert has taken charge of seven Champions League games this season, issuing 36 yellows and two reds. On average, he gives around 23 fouls per game in Europe, almost 1.5 more than he awards in the Bundesliga. He also averages just 0.16 penalty per game in the competition, half the rate of his Bundesliga refereeing.
Interestingly, he has refereed three English sides already in the Champions League this season (Chelsea, Spurs and Newcastle) and gave more yellow cards in those games than in any of his others (8, 7, 6 v 5, 5, 4, 2).
Siebert refereed Arsenal in last season’s Champions League when they won 3-0 at home against Dinamo Zagreb. In that game he issued four yellows, with two going to each side (Raheem Sterling and Jurrien Timber booked for Arsenal). He was also in charge for Sporting’s 4-1 thrashing of City the gameweek before that match.
The Arsenal squad trained at London Colney at 11.30am on Monday. Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard were with the group.