Malmo vs Granada 02/10/20

2 October 2020

Granada travel to the Eleda Stadion to take on Malmo in their single-legged UEFA Europa League play-offs, looking to secure their place in the UEFA group stage for the first time in the club’s history.

The hosts have been nothing short of outstanding in the Europa League qualifying so far. Indeed, Jon Dahl Tomasson’s men have started their European journey in the first qualifying round, overcoming Polish side Cracovia 2-0 before going past Hungarian club Honved via the identical scoreline. Malmo’s best European performance so far arrived in the previous qualifying round as they brushed aside Croatian team Lokomotiva Zagreb 5-0 at this venue. However, the ‘Himmelsblått’ lament a disastrous UEFA record against Spanish opponents, having lost all six of their previous such fixtures via at least a two-goal margin. What’s more, they have managed to find the back of the net only once across those clashes while conceding 22 in the process!

Meanwhile, the visitors have joined this season’s competition in the second qualifying round, easing past Albanian outfit Teuta 4-0. The ‘Nazaríes’ then went on to dump Georgian team Locomotive Tbilisi 2-0 to secure a place in the play-offs. Interestingly, it’s Granada’s first-ever appearance on the European stage. The ‘clean-sheet’ theme remains quite significant, though, in the context of Granada’s away results this calendar year. Indeed, 72.73% (eight) of their 11 competitive away wins and defeats since the turn of the year have seen the winner on the day shut out the loser. Also, a slight majority (54.55%) of those 11 matches have featured under 2.5 goals (6/11).