Salzburg will face Napoli at Red Bull Arena, in Salzburg, in the Europa League 1/8-Finals second leg. Salzburg against Napoli is always the match with big interest, especially during this season. Review our thoughts on this match here below.
Salzburg
Salzburg this year is looking very confident and strong. In Austrian Tipico Bundesliga, they have 9 points difference with the nearest chaser LASK Linz while standing at the top of the table. Unfortunately, they lost to Crvena Zvezda in Champions League qualification final and been promoted to UEFA Europa League. In the group stage of EL, they took first place by winning all matches even against RB Leipzig, scoring 17 and conceding only 6 goals. Till now Salzburg striker form Israel M. Dabbur scored most goals in this tournament. The team from Salzburg is unbeaten at home this season and they should show everyone that at home they can be better even against Napoli.
The biggest loss is main center back Marin Pongracic absent due to injury for next match. All other main squad players are able to play the most important match of the season.
In Europa League, this season Salzburg scores 2.4 goals per game on average, pass the ball with 78.7% accuracy and control the game by 51.9% possession. Moreover, they shoot 18.4 times per game and already collected 19 yellow cards.
Napoli
Napoli is one of the strongest teams in this competition. They finished the fight for the title of Seria A, however, now they need to save the second position. In Coppa Italia, they kicked off earlier by AC Milan and now the path of Europa League should be the goal of the season. Unfortunately, they got into the strongest and most dangerous group of Champions League with Liverpool and Paris SG. As a result of the strong play, they had the same amount of points as Liverpool, but the Reds were luckier and won the decisive match in last group stage round. In road games, Napoli often facing troubles and already lost 5 and had drawn 5 in last 18 away matches.
Almost all main squad players will fight against Salzburg. Unfortunately, experienced defender Raul Albiol will miss this match due to injury.
In UEFA Europa League 3 this season matches, on average Napoli score 2.66 goals per match, pass with 84.3% accuracy and control the game with 58.2% possession. Moreover, they collected already 7 yellow cards.
H2H
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