Maribor vs HJK Match Analysis and Prediction

4 years ago 993

Maribor and HJK will continue their European qualification campaign in the Europa League when they face off at Ljudski VRT in the first leg of their third qualifying round tie on Thursday night.

Both began their European qualification campaign in the first round of the Champions League qualifiers, but both failed to get past the second round and thus dropped to the Europa League qualifiers.

Maribor did well to see out Soligorsk 2-0 on aggregate in the first round before stumbling to a 1-0 defeat on aggregate to Sheriff Tiraspol in the second round. They will now hope a drop further to the Conference League as they hope to go through to the group stage of Europa League.

Maribor are coming off a 2-1defeat to Koper in their domestic league, making it back-to-back losses across all competitions and will have to make amends ahead of the Thursday’s slash. They are solid at home having only lost just one of their last seven matches in front of their fans and will be looking to extend the run when HJK coming calling.

HJK, meanwhile, saw out Rigas Futbola 5-4 on penalties following a 2-2 aggregate draw in the first round of Champions League qualifiers, but they could not match Viktoria Plzen in the second round as they crumbled to a 7-1 on aggregate defeat.

However, the Finnish outfits managed to bounce back with 1-0 home win against Mariehamn in the Veikkausliiga and will be looking to build on that as they now seek to qualify for the group stage of the Europa League. A victory on Thursday will put them in a good position to continue their Europa League qualification campaign something they will be gunning for.