After the footballers of Slovan Bratislava and Ružomberok, the players of Trnava and Dunajská Streda are also starting their journey in cup Europe. In the 2nd preliminary round of the European Conference League, they fight for generous bonuses and participation in the group phase.
Today, Spartak will play at the FK Sarajevo field from 21:00, and DAC will fight in Baku against the Zira team from 18:30.
Ružomberok, after progressing through Kazakhstan’s Kostanaj, will welcome Turkish Trabzonspor at home today from 6:30 p.m. in the opening match of the 2nd preliminary round of the European League.
The Trnava team had a warm-up before the start of the season against Aston Villa.
Although they lost 0:3 against the fourth team of the previous Premier League season, coach Michal Gašparík was satisfied with the performance.
“You have to look at it with a perspective, where is the level of our, Slovak, players and where is foreign football. The team should grow in matches with such opponents, also in terms of self-confidence. I don’t think it was a cat and mouse game. It was even in several moments,” he assessed.
He also appeared against Spartak’s first opponent in the European Cup, which is a club from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“A very difficult environment awaits us – typically Balkan. Around 25,000 to 30,000 people will come to the stadium and it will be a much tougher opponent than we had before in the preliminary rounds.
It will be 50 to 50 and the important thing is that the return is at home. We need to make a good first result,” thinks the coach from Trnava. In the event of promotion, the Trnava team will face the worse team from the Wisla Kraków – Rapid Vienna match.
SR Football EKL 3rd round H Group TTX Thoughtful coach of Spartak Michal Gašparík.
The people of Dunajskostre want to transfer the positive performances from the training to the start of the season. Coach Xisco Muňoz should have a complete squad at his disposal.
“We had minor injuries, but we coped with it. The players understood our values and showed it in the matches. We did what we planned,” he says.
DAC experienced a fiasco last year when it was not enough against the Georgian club Dila Goris in the first preliminary round of the EKL.
At the time, fans on social media called the first-round elimination against a team ranked 216th lower a “disgrace and a colossal failure”.
Yellow-blue captain Yhoan Andzouana emphasizes that they want to avoid a similar stumble.
“We are going in the right direction, we need to continue it. We are ready to avoid the mistakes we made at the beginning of last season,” he added.
In case of promotion, the Slovak vice-champion will face the winner of the double match between NK Osijek and FCI Levadia Tallinn.
Source: sportweb.pravda.sk
