Europa League 2022-23 is back in action with the second leg about to take place between the teams qualified for Round 16. On Thursday, Roma will be hosting their Europa League rivals RB Salzburg at Stadio Olimpico. Both the teams met last week for the first leg and RB Salzburg turned out to be the winner by 1-0.
Roma finished second in the group stage of the Europa League with 3 wins and 10 points. They are currently in the third spot in the Serie A point table but are in a close contest with AC Milan and Inter Milan.
RB Salzburg witnessed a disappointing end to their Champions League run. They finished third in the group stage and were overpowered by Chelsea and AC Milan. The bookmakers have some fancy odds for the Europa League.
La Magica have seen a sudden uprising in their style of play as they now stand at the third spot in the Serie A point table and it looks like Jose Mourinho is taking his boys to the Champions League 2023-24. They are coming to host Salzburg after scoring a home win against Verona in a Serie A fixture by 1-0. This is the second time Roma is facing Salzburg and the home team has a chance to change things at home.
Paulo Dybala has been declared fit but he is out of match practice, hence Mourinho won’t risk starting with him.
Predicted Lineup: Rui Patricio, Gianluca Mancini, Chris Smalling, Roger Ibañez, Nicola Zalewski, Bryan Cristante, Nemanja Matic, Stephan El Shaarawy, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Andrea Belotti, Tammy Abraham.
The league leaders from the Austrian Bundesliga, RB Salzburg were aggressive and had possession the majority of the time in the first leg. However, they found it difficult to break the defence of Roma but Nicolas Capaldo, in the last moment of the game, scored with an assist from Pavlovic. It is a golden chance for the Austrian giant to make it to the next round of the Europa League.
Salzburg has a long list of injured players. Jerome Onguene, Bryan Okoh, Daouda Guindo, Samson Tijani, Lawrence Agyekum, Justin Omoregie, Dijon Kameri, and Karim Konate are all in the injury room.
Predicted Lineup: Philipp Köhn, Amar Dedić, Oumar Solet, Strahinja Pavlovic, Andreas Ulmer, Nicolás Capaldo, Lucas Gourna-Douath, Nicolas Seiwald, Luka Sucic, Fernando, Noah Okafor.
It is getting difficult to break defence of Roma with every game. In the past few games, Roma registered clean sheets and Salzburg will find it difficult to score goals. We are in for a low-scoring fixture where Roma will win the game and eventually make it to the next round.
