On Thursday night, Southampton take on Sparta Prague at St Mary’s in their first ever match in the Europa League group stage. But just who are Sparta Prague? I familiarised myself with Thursday’s opponents.
As the name says, Sparta Prague are a football club based in the Czech Republic’s capital of Prague. They compete in the Czech Synot Liga – a competition they’ve won twelve times. Sparta Prague, managed by Zdeněk Ščasný, are one of very few competitors for the Czech Synot Liga title; a title they’ve already gotten closer to currently sitting in second place.
Last season, Sparta reached the quarter-finals, only to be beaten by Villarreal in a thrilling tie that ended 6-3 on aggregate, which was their best ever finish in the competition. They’ve made it to the knockout stages three times from seven UEFA Cup and Europa League campaigns, with those three times coming from the last three years.
Sparta have a relatively large stadium considering the lack of quality in teams that compete in the Czech Republic’s top division. The Generali Arena has a capacity of 20,854.
This year, the Czech outfit qualified for the Europa League group stages after winning their play-off tie against SonderjyskE. Before that, they had been knocked out of the Champions League qualifying stages by Steaua Bucharest.
It’s the second time in a row that Sparta Prague are competing in Group K, also. Last year, they qualified for the knockout stages in a group alongside Schalke, APOEL and Asteras.
Prague have some players that Southampton fans may remember such as Tomas Rosicky, who was released by Arsenal this summer. Another one to watch is Sparta’s 34-year-old striker David Lafata who has an impressive strike rate of more than one goal every game.
Without a doubt, this will be a tricky game when it comes around but on paper Southampton should be confident as they’re unbeaten at home since losing to Chelsea all the way back in February.
Also, they haven’t lost in five European home games – winning once and drawing four times – a run that stretches all the way back to a tie with Sporting Lisbon in the 1981 UEFA Cup.
Sparta Prague have lost their last three away games in Europe but will come with confidence after a strong start to their new league campaign.
