The club Borac Banja Luka will play their Conference League knockout round playoff second leg match in Slovenia against NK Olimpija Ljubljana on Thursday.
The Bosnian group travels to face Slovenia with a slim lead after their initial victory by a 1-0 score at the Banja Luka City Stadium during the previous weekend.
The Slovenian club Olimpija participated in UEFA knockout competition competitions for the first time ever after their 14th-place standing in league competition.
The Slovenian side faced their maiden European cup knockout round loss through a 1-0 defeat which amounted to their two main draw away defeats.
The team earned a 3-0 victory against Nafta in Sunday's Slovenian PrvaLiga fixture giving Olimpija a tenth game without a loss that maintained their nine-point leadership in the standings while Antonio Marin, Ivan Durdov and Raul Florucz delivered the goals.
On Thursday the team from Ljubljana will face a challenging second-round fixture to gain qualification for the next stage while they risk losing their fourth Slovenian top-flight championship to their opponents.
The hosts derive strength from their previous five Conference League home victories (during qualifying) this season yet they experienced a 4-1 defeat in their most recent European home contest against Cercle Brugge.
Their five first-leg victories came with play-off clean sheets and another sound defensive performance would secure them every possibility to return home victorious in the second match.
Borac Banja Luka advanced from the UEFA competition's group stage/league phase for the first time after finishing in 20th place with eight points from six games.
With Sandi Ogrinec's stoppage-time goal in last week's first leg against Olimpija, the Bosnian champions went on to enjoy success in their first participation in the European knockout phase, capitalizing on Florucz's red card to win 1-0.
Borac's defensive play won them back-to-back clean sheets in their European home games, and the outcome preserved their undefeated home record in the Conference League this season (W2, D2).
Unlike their opponents on Thursday, Mladen Zizovic's team had a week to prepare for their journey to the Slovenian capital because they had no domestic games to worry about over the weekend.
Given that they have dropped two of their three away games in the 2024–25 Conference League, Borac may need to utilize all of that extra preparation time.
They lost 2-0 to Vikingur Reykjavik in Iceland after defeating APOEL in their first away Conference League main draw match. They then suffered a crushing 3-0 loss to Shamrock Rovers in the Republic of Ireland.
