Stripes to play with black armband following the death of former president Victor Zammit
Birkirkara and Floriana will aim to make it a perfect week for Maltese football in European club competitions as they seek to advance to the second qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League at the expense of FC Petrocub of Moldova and Welsh side Haverfordwest County, with both matches set to start at 7pm on Thursday.
Birkirkara travelled to Moldova, with their spirits high following last week’s hard-fought 1-0 win over FC Petrocub that handed them a crucial advantage ahead of Thursday’s second leg.
The build-up for Thursday’s match was somewhat hit by the sad news of the death of club president Victor Zammit.
Zammit was an inspirational figure for the Stripes as during his reign as president, between 1999 and 2008, he helped the club win 18 major domestic honours, but more importantly, put the club on solid foundations.
This evening, the Stripes are expected to wear a black armband during the match as a sign of respect for their former president.
Coach Stefano De Angelis is taking nothing for granted, and he warned his players that he expects them to approach the match with the same intensity and resiliency of last week’s first leg at the Centenary Stadium.
“Nothing has changed after last week’s match,” De Angelis told the Times of Malta.
“We need to adopt the same approach of the first leg and not fall into the trap of letting our opponents take control of the match and try and hit them on the counter, as that is too much of a risk.
“Petrocub are a very physical team and have a lot of quality in their squad, so we need to make sure that we play our game and try and create scoring chances to try and score another goal to build on our one-goal advantage.”
The Birkirkara coach said that he is expecting a different FC Petrocub side this evening as he believes they will not fall into the same mistake of last week where he believes they underestimated the strengths of Birkirkara.
Attacking intent
“I do not doubt that Petrocub will adopt a different approach this time around,” he said.
“They will come out with all guns blazing, and surely they will not take us lightly, like it happened last week, and I am sure they will dictate the game.
“Petrocub is already a very offensive-minded team and will surely try to put us under a lot of pressure to try and score an early goal and try to level the tie. They will come out strongly, both in terms of intensity and quality, so we need to be careful.
“We are a team that will rely on the experience on some of our players and we must play the game with a lot of intensity and stay tactically compact, as we did in the first leg, to make life difficult for our opponents.”
De Angelis said that he is sweating on the fitness of a number of players who have still not fully recovered from the exertions of last week’s opening leg but is hopeful to be able to bank on all the players in his squad.
Floriana, on their part, have been in Wales for almost a week now preparing for Thursday’s second leg against Haverfordwest County.
The Greens head into the match holding a crucial 2-1 lead following last week’s come-from-behind win over their Welsh opponents and will be determined to finish the job with victory in today’s second leg.
One thing the Greens will be aware of today is the fact that they cannot afford another slow start, as happened last week when they found themselves behind in the early stages of the match.
But coach Daniel Portela will be encouraged by the response of his players to turn the match around and will be hopeful to see his team take control of the game and prove their technical superiority on the pitch to progress to the second qualifying round of the competition.
