LASK vs FCSB

On Thursday night, LASK Linz and FCSB will play the first leg of their Europa League playoff match at Raiffeisen Arena in Austria. The winners of this two-leg match will advance to the newly expanded 36-team Europa League, while the losers will be relegated to the Conference League.

After competing in the 2023–24 group stage, LASK Linz is aiming to qualify for the Europa League proper for the fourth time in club history and for the second time in as many seasons.

Despite having to settle for a third-place finish in the Austrian Bundesliga the previous season, Die Laskler will not be participating in the qualification rounds; instead, they will automatically go to the Europa League playoff round.

Thomas Darazs took over as permanent coach at the end of the previous season after serving as an interim coach. In LASK's first four competitive games of the current season, the 46-year-old posted two victories and two defeats.

They started the season with a 2-1 victory away from Hartberg in their first league match at the start of August, but since then, they have lost back-to-back league games at home to Rheindorf Altach (2-1) and Red Bull Salzburg (1-0), losing to the latter last weekend. They had previously defeated lower-league side Union Gurten 3-0 in the first round of the Austrian Cup.

When LASK plays FCSB on Thursday, who have also had trouble starting the season with a steady run of play, Darazs will be looking for a response from his team.

The 27-time Romanian champions, in fact, have only won five of their first 12 competitive games in all competitions, and they have only triumphed once in their first five league games, leaving them lagging in 13th place and nine points behind the leaders.

Four days after losing 3-2 (and 4-3 on aggregate) to Sparta Prague in the Champions League third qualifying round, Elias Charalambous's team faced a close 1-0 home loss to Politehnica Iasi last weekend while fielding 10 players.

FCSB is now vying for a spot in the Europa League as they attempt to advance to the competition's main stage for the first time since making it to the knockout stages in 2017–18.