AEK vs Wolfsburg 02/10/20

2 October 2020

AEK Athens and Wolfsburg come face to face at the Olympic Stadium of Athens “Spiros Louis” for their UEFA Europa League play-offs decider.

The hosts have battled their way through to the Europa League play-offs thanks to a narrow 1-0 away win over St Gallen in the third qualifying round. AEK’s overall record in the Europa League play-offs is W4, L1. However, facing German opponents have proved to be a daunting task for the Greek giants throughout history, as they’ve picked up just two wins from 11 European clashes against such rivals (W2, D1, L8). Furthermore, the ‘Kitrinómavri’ have drawn a blank in three of their last four home European encounters with the Bundesliga visitors (W1, L3). In turn, Massimo Carrera’s men now take the field after failing to secure a single win from their previous six UEFA home outings (D2, L4), qualifying included.

On the other hand, Wolfsburg hammered Albanian side Kukesi 4-0 in the second qualifying round and went on to edge past Ukrainian club Desna 2-0 in the third round. It will be their first-ever European clash against a Greek team and also their play-offs debut. ‘Die Wölfe’ did well in the Europa League last season, going all the way to the round of 16, where they failed to overcome Shakhtar Donetsk, losing 5-1 on aggregate (1-2 H, 0-3 A). Yet, a loss in Ukraine remains Wolfsburg’s only European defeat in their previous six games away from home (W3, D2), with four of those matches seeing Oliver Glasner’s men restrict their hosts of the day to a maximum of one goal.