Although Tuesday night’s hosts, Zalgiris, return to the more familiar surroundings of their Vilniaus LFF stadionas for this upcoming 2nd qualifying round 2nd leg tie against Hungarian outfit, Ferencvaros, Zalgiris face a tough task of overhauling their opponents following last week’s 2-0 defeat in Budapest.
On the domestic front, Zalgiris have enjoyed a successful run of results in the Lithuanian A Lyga as the hosts currently sit top of the domestic top flight and they’ve lost just one of their last 13 matches in all competitions.
⏱90' FT | 2️⃣-0️⃣ | VICTORY on the first match of the 2nd round! ✌️👏#fradi #ftc #ferencvaros pic.twitter.com/fPBGnre6a7— Ferencvárosi TC (@Fradi_HU) July 20, 2021
⏱90' FT | 2️⃣-0️⃣ | VICTORY on the first match of the 2nd round! ✌️👏#fradi #ftc #ferencvaros pic.twitter.com/fPBGnre6a7
Zalgiris disposed of Irish club, Linfield, in the previous qualifying round of the Champions League by a fairly comprehensive 5-2 aggregate, winning both home and away ties 3-1 and 2-1 respectively.
However, this could be where Zalgiris’s Champions League journey ends as they were handed a 2-0 defeat in last week’s 1st leg at Ferencvaros and they now find themselves chasing this tie.
Zalgiris have also had limited exposure at Champions League level and they’ve won just four of their previous 15 ties at this level.
Onto Ferencvaros, and the Hungarian side will be looking to make it four wins on the trot in this season’s Champions League competition having already seen off the challenge from Kosovan club, Prishtina, 6-1 on aggregate in the previous qualifying round, together with last week’s solid 2-0 home win over Zalgiris.
Recent form has seen Ferencvaros enjoy a purple-patch of results as the visitors have now won their last 10 matches on the trot in all competitions which includes winning their last five away games on the bounce as well.
The bigger picture shows that Ferencvaros are unbeaten in their last 17 matches overall, while also losing just once in their previous 26 matches as well, so the visitors will be in confident mood ahead of this return leg.
In addition, Ferencvaros have been scoring goals of late too as they’ve scored a total of 8 goals in their last three Champions League ties and have conceded just 1 goal in return.
Zalgiris may well have their work cut out against a confident and solid looking Ferencvaros outfit here in this 2nd leg, although the hosts will need to attack here to try and retrieve this tie so goals could feature on Tuesday night.