Salzburg v Club Brugge background

Group stage kings Salzburg, who won six games out of six in the autumn, will need another victory at home to Club Brugge to remain in the UEFA Europa League following a 2-1 first-leg defeat in Bruges, the reigning Belgian champions having come from behind to defeat their Austrian counterparts and extend their own undefeated European run to five matches.

• Salzburg topped Group B with maximum points ahead of Celtic, RB Leipzig and Rosenborg, while Club Brugge finished third in UEFA Champions League Group A behind Borussia Dortmund and Atlético Madrid.

Previous meetings
• The clubs' first meeting proved a tight and dramatic affair. Salzburg's Zlatko Junuzović gave the visitors a 17th-minute lead at the Jan Breydelstadion with a fine lob, but Club Brugge rallied in the second half, winning the game with two headed goals from Stefano Denswil and Wesley.

• Salzburg have won five of their 11 matches against Belgian clubs, also including the two most recent before this season – home (2-1) and away (3-1) wins against Standard Liège in the 2013/14 UEFA Europa League group stage. Their last six encounters with Belgian opposition until the first leg had all been against Standard, including two in the 2009/10 UEFA Europa League round of 32 which Salzburg lost 2-3 on aggregate.

• This is Club Brugge's 11th encounter with Austrian opposition. They have won only four of their previous ten matches, but those include the three most recent, including UEFA Champions League group games against Rapid Wien in 2005/06 (1-0 away, 3-2 home). Those were the Belgian team's last wins in that competition proper until this season's 4-0 success at Monaco on matchday four.

Form guide
Salzburg
• Champions of Austria for the fifth year running in 2017/18, Salzburg entered this season's UEFA Champions League in the third qualifying round, but their annual summer quest to reach the group stage ended in another near-miss as they surrendered a two-goal lead to lose on away goals to Crvena zvezda in the play-offs (0-0 away, 2-2 home).

• The Austrian side claimed maximum points in this season's UEFA Europa League group stage, becoming the first club to achieve the feat three times (after 2009/10 and 2013/14). It was also the fifth time that they had come through a UEFA Europa League group unbeaten and the fifth time they had topped their section – both competition records.

• Last season Salzburg enjoyed the most successful of their five previous campaigns in the UEFA Europa League knockout phase, eliminating Real Sociedad in the round of 32 (2-2 away, 2-1 home), then Dortmund and Lazio before losing after extra time in the semi-final to Marseille. They had won just one of their previous four round of 32 ties, against Ajax in 2013/14 (3-0 away, 3-1 home), losing against Standard in 2009/10 (2-3 away, 0-0 home), Metalist Kharkiv in 2011/12 (0-4 home, 1-4 away) and Villarreal in 2014/15 (1-2 away, 1-3 home).

• Salzburg are undefeated in 16 European home games, winning 12 including six of the last seven. They have not conceded more than one goal in any of their last 15 UEFA Europa League home fixtures, play-offs included, keeping clean sheets in nine of those matches.

• Salzburg have won only six of the 16 UEFA two-legged ties in which they have lost the first match away. However, four of those six successes have been after a 2-1 reverse in the first leg, their only defeat with that first-leg scoreline coming in that 2014/15 round of 32 tie against Villarreal. They had mixed fortunes in the latter stages of last season's UEFA Europa League after losing the away leg, recovering to beat Lazio in the quarter-final (2-4 away, 4-1 home) but going out in the next round to Marseille (0-2 away, 2-1 home).

Club Brugge
• Belgian champions for the 15th time – and second in three seasons - in 2017/18, Club Brugge qualified automatically for a sixth participation in the UEFA Champions League. Defeated in their opening two matches – 0-1 at home to Dortmund, 1-3 at Atlético – they thus stretched their losing run in the competition proper to eight games in a row. However, they went unbeaten in their last four fixtures, drawing three in addition to that victory at Monaco.

• This is Club Brugge's fourth appearance in the UEFA Europa League knockout phase. They lost their round of 32 ties in 2009/10 – to Valencia (1-0 home, 0-3 away) – and 2011/12 – to Hannover (1-2 away, 0-1 home) – but made it third time lucky in 2014/15, overcoming Denmark's AaB 6-1 on aggregate (3-1 away, 3-0 home) en route to the quarter-finals.

• This season's win at Monaco ended a run of six successive European away defeats – and 12 on the road without a victory – for Club Brugge. They remain without a win in their last five UEFA Europa League away fixtures, play-offs included (D2 L3), their last success coming at Beşiktaş in the 2014/15 round of 16 second leg (3-1, after a 2-1 win at home).

• This is the 40th time that Club Brugge have won the first home leg of a UEFA competition tie. They have gone on to qualify on 26 of the previous 39 occasions, including ten of the last 11, the only exception that round of 32 defeat by Valencia nine years ago. When they have prevailed at home in the first leg 2-1, they have qualified on five of the nine occasions including the last four, most recently in the 2014/15 UEFA Europa League round of 16 against Beşiktaş (3-1 away).

UEFA Europa League squad changes
• Salzburg
In: Dominik Szoboszlai, Erling Braut Håland, Albert Vallci
Out: Amadou Haidara, Jasper Van Der Werff, Reinhold Yabo

• Club Brugge
In: none
Out: none

Links and trivia 
• Club Brugge's American goalkeeper Ethan Horvath is a former team-mate of Salzburg striker Fredrik Gulbrandsen. The pair played together for Norwegian club Molde between 2013 and 2016.

• Denswil was an Ajax player when Salzburg defeated the Dutch club in the 2013/14 UEFA Europa League round of 32, starting the second leg in Austria. André Ramalho and Andreas Ulmer were in the Salzburg side for both matches.

• Marin Pongračić (Salzburg) and Karlo Letica (Club Brugge) played together for Croatia's Under-21s in 2017.

• Salzburg's 2-1 win at Celtic on matchday six was the Austrian club's record 37th in the competition, one more than Villarreal.

• Salzburg are one of seven teams to have come through the UEFA Europa League group stage undefeated, but they, Dinamo Zagreb and Arsenal have now surrendered that record, leaving just four – Betis, Villarreal, Eintracht Frankfurt and Chelsea – unbeaten after seven games.

• Salzburg's Israeli international striker Munas Dabbur is the 2018/19 UEFA Europa League's top scorer, having struck six times in the group stage. He leads Eintracht Frankfurt's Luka Jović, Sevilla's Wissam Ben Yedder and Chelsea's Olivier Giroud by one.

• Club Brugge and Salzburg are two of eight current domestic champions competing in the round of 32.

Penalty shoot-outs
• Salzburg's record in two UEFA penalty shoot-outs is W1 L1:
5-4 v Eintracht Frankfurt, 1993/94 UEFA Cup quarter-final
2-3 v Dinamo Minsk, 2015/16 UEFA Europa League play-off

• Club Brugge's record in four UEFA penalty shoot-outs is W4 L0:
4-1 v Shakhtar Donetsk, 2002/03 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round
4-2 v Borussia Dortmund, 2003/04 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round
4-3 v Vålerenga, 2005/06 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round
4-3 v Lech Poznań, 2009/10 UEFA Europa League play-off

The coaches
• Previously Salzburg's youth team boss, Marco Rose stepped up to the senior helm after Óscar García left in June 2017, having led the club to victory in the 2016/17 UEFA Youth League. A defender with home-town club VfB Leipzig, Hannover and Mainz, he has been on Salzburg's coaching staff since 2013 and oversaw the club's fifth successive Austrian Bundesliga title as well as a run to the UEFA Europa League semi-finals during his debut campaign in the top job. The club have continued to prosper under his guidance in 2018/19.

• A free-scoring midfielder who made his name with Hajduk Split and won 13 international caps for Croatia, Ivan Leko spent three and a half years as a player with Club Brugge, during which he won the 2006/07 Belgian Cup. Having hung up his boots in February 2014, he began his coaching career in Belgium with OH Leuven. He also had a spell at Sint-Truiden before replacing Michel Preud'homme at Club Brugge in 2017 and promptly leading the Blue-Blacks to a gun-to-tape title success, which was rewarded with Belgium's coach of the year award.