Sports Mole previews Thursday's Europa Conference League clash between Sparta Prague and Partizan, including predictions, team news and possible lineups.

Sparta Prague welcome Partizan to the Generali Ceska Pojistovna Arena on Thursday evening for the first leg of the pair's Europa Conference League knockout round playoff.

The hosts qualified for the playoff by finishing third in Group A of the Europa League, whilst the visitors finished the Conference League group stages second to Gent.

Match preview

Sparta Prague players pictured on September 30, 2021 © Reuters

Two and a half games into their Europa League campaign, Sparta Prague looked to be in a very promising position, having won an important game with Rangers 1-0 after an opening draw with Brondby, and 2-1 up at home to Lyon after 45 minutes.

However, that 2-1 lead would turn into a 4-3 loss, and after another defeat to Les Gones followed a 2-0 loss at Rangers meant qualification was already impossible after five games due to the Scottish side having the better goal difference in their head-to-head matches.

Pavel Vrba's side were, at least, able to secure the consolation of a place in the Conference League playoffs with a 2-0 win against Brondby sealing third place in Group A and will now aim for their first-ever piece of silverware in European competition in the newly-formed third tier of UEFA's knockout tournaments.

Iron Sparta have made it to the quarter-finals of the Europa League, the UEFA Cup and the now-defunct Cup Winners' Cup, but have never reached the final four.

To do so this campaign, they will first have to find their way past a side who boast a far better recent domestic record than their own.

Whilst Sparta are currently third in the Czech First League, behind local rivals Slavia Prague and Viktoria Plzen, Partizan have a five-point lead at the Serbian SuperLiga summit.

Still undefeated after 22 games of the season, on a run of six successive league wins and with 13 victories from their last 14 games, they look destined for the title.

Last year, it was local rivals Red Star Belgrade who went unbeaten and stormed to the crown, but they are now five points behind Partizan and unlikely to catch them.

The Black-Whites also produced a solid performance in the group stage of the Conference League, notching up eight points on their way to second place.

Sparta will be a significant step up in terms of an opponent, though, and they will need to draw on all of the momentum acquired in their home country to secure a place in the knockouts.

Sparta Prague form (all competitions):

Partizan Europa Conference League form:

Partizan form (all competitions):

Team News

Belgium's Hans Vanaken in action with Czech Republic's Adam Hlozek on September 5, 2021 © Reuters

For their last league game against Plzen, Vrba brought David Hancko into the defensive four of a 4-5-1 setup.

David Pavelka and Adam Hlozek returned to the midfield, with Jakub Pesek and Lukas Haraslin operating on the wings and Martin Minchev at the top of the attack.

The starting XI will likely look similar after an impressive recovery from two goals down in that game.

Aleksandar Stanojevic will also stick with a winning formula - his preferred formation of 3-4-2-1 with Cape Verde's Gomes Ricardo leading the line.

Sparta Prague possible starting lineup:
Holec; Wiesner, Panak, Celustka, Hancko; Pesek, Pavelka, Sacek, Hlozek, Haraslin; Mincev

Partizan possible starting lineup:
Popovic; Slobodan, Igor, Sinisa; Milos, Nemanja, Bibras, Danilo; Sasa, Queensy; Ricardo

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We say: Sparta Prague 2-0 Partizan

Partizan will likely sit deep and try to catch their opponents out on the counter, but the hosts should have enough to seal the victory. We are backing a 2-0 win for Sparta.

Data Analysis

Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Sparta Prague win with a probability of 43.73%. A win for Partizan had a probability of 30.13% and a draw had a probability of 26.1%.

The most likely scoreline for a Sparta Prague win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.82%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.94%) and 2-0 (7.79%). The likeliest Partizan win was 0-1 (8.64%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.43%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with an 8.6% likelihood.