Sevilla vs APOEL 04/10/19

4 October 2019

Sevilla will take on a club from Cyprus for the first time in their history when they entertain APOEL at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán this midweek.

The hosts started the 2019/20 UEFA Europa League (EL) campaign with a commanding 3-0 away triumph over Qarabag. But, Los Rojiblancos have lost two of three La Liga matches ahead of this clash (W1, L2), with two of those games going opposite directions by the identical 3-2 scoreline. Record five-time winners of the competition, Los Hispalenses have racked up a remarkable 18-game winning home run in the EL against non-Spanish rivals before being held to a 2-2 draw to Slavia Praha last campaign. Also, the Andalusians have not only won all six of their previous EL group stage matches at home, but they have suffered just one defeat in 12 such games (W8, D3, L1).

On the other hand, the visitors sustained a shock 4-3 home loss to Dudelange in the opening fixture, failing to pick up a win in a third successive European match, qualifying included (D1, L2). APOEL’s European journey this season has started in the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round with a comfortable 4-0 aggregate success against the Montenegrian side Sutjeska (1-0 A, 3-0 H), after which they pulled off a second-leg comeback to dump Qarabag out in the third qualifying round (1-2 H, 2-0 A). However, the reigning Cypriot champions failed to overcome Ajax in the play-offs, losing 2-0 on aggregate (0-0 H, 0-2 A) to shift to the Europa League. Twelve defeats in 18 previous European showdowns against the Spanish clubs (W1, D5, L12) indicate that “Τhrylos” will hardly manage to walk away from Seville with some points.