UEFA Europa League PREVIEW 27 Aug 2026: Twelve second legs, and Mohamed Salah has a goal to find in Budapest

Twelve Europa League play-off second legs on Thursday, and nobody involved is playing for their European season: the winners go into the Europa League league phase and the losers into the Conference League league phase. The marquee tie is the tightest. Ferencvaros go into Budapest a goal up on Trabzonspor after Kristoffer Zachariassen headed in Oliver Nagy's cross on 17 minutes at Papara Park, on a night that was Mohamed Salah's first start for the Turkish club and ended with Chibuike Nwaiwu sent off in stoppage time. Nwaiwu is suspended, Samet Akaydin is expected to replace him, and Salah arrives in form, having scored both goals in a 2-1 win over Istanbul Basaksehir on Sunday. Balazs Borbely is not planning to sit on the lead: "Defending the 1-0 is not our objective. We want to play our own game." He also expects a change of shape from the visitors: "We know Salah will play in a different position than in Turkey. We have to be better than we were there."

Five ties look close to finished. Lech Poznan won 7-0 at home against Thun, Patrik Walemark scoring twice, and Thun's own preview asks only for a response in front of their supporters at the Visana Stadion. Crvena zvezda beat Viktoria Plzen 3-0 in Belgrade through two from Mirko Ivanic and an Aleksandar Katai penalty, and Albert Riera's line before travelling was plain enough: "We came to do our job and win." OFI Crete lead CSKA Sofia by the same score and go to the Vasil Levski National Stadium, where Hristo Yanev says ten thousand tickets have gone and that his side want to win "for our honour, to show what we are made of". Christos Kontis will not let his own players read the scoreline as done: "The match starts from 0:0." Anderlecht are 3-0 up on Kairat Almaty, and Benfica lead AGF Aarhus 3-1 from the Estadio da Luz.

The Aarhus tie is worth watching for where it is played as much as what is at stake. AGF cannot use their own temporary ground, so their European home this season is Cepheus Park in Randers, and the club say the 9,000 there are sold out. Jakob Poulsen's line was that his side must "be really good as a team and also hit a high level individually"; Marco Silva called AGF "an opponent who will want to make an impact right from the start of the game" and travels without Fredrik Aursnes, who has a sprained ankle. Anderlecht's tie carries a story of its own: the trip to Almaty for the first leg was about 5,200 kilometres each way, described in Belgium as the longest European journey a Belgian club has made, with a chartered aircraft and roughly fifteen travelling supporters. Rafael Urazbakhtin was blunt about what happened when they got there, saying that at this level gross and stupid mistakes get punished, and his side may rotate for Brussels.

Three ties are still genuinely open. Sint-Truidense won 1-0 at home against Omonia through Shogo Taniguchi in the fourth minute of stoppage time, and go to a GSP Stadium where Omonia's manager wants an end to the wastefulness: "We want to score this time. We create at a satisfactory level. However, we want to see goals." Salzburg lead Mjallby by a single goal, and it was not one anybody scored on purpose — Tom Pettersson turned Nikolas Veratschnig's delivery into his own net in the first minute of added time at Strandvallen. Danny Rohl was unimpressed with his own side even in victory: "Of course, we're happy to take the win, but there's a critical attitude in the dressing room. We need to deliver more." Mjallby, champions of Sweden in 2025 and playing out of a village on the Blekinge coast, are guaranteed Conference League football whatever happens. Lillestrom and Egnatia drew 0-0 in Rrogozhine and settle it at Araasen, where more than seven thousand tickets had gone by Monday and the club opened part of the away end to home supporters; Egnatia arrive unbeaten in their last eight in all competitions.

Three ties complete the card. The most level of them is Ararat-Armenia against Universitatea Craiova, drawn 1-1 at the Ion Oblemenco Stadium, with the Yerevan club — founded in 2017, and not the older FC Ararat Yerevan — moving to the Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium to play it. Craiova travel without Adrian Rus, who is facing a long absence with a suspected cruciate rupture. The other two look settled. Jagiellonia won 4-0 at Bialystok against Iberia 1999, the heaviest European defeat in the Tbilisi club's record, and the return is at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium; Iberia 1999 played as Saburtalo until February 2024 and are the same club under two names, which is why some previews still file them that way. Kauno Zalgiris, Lithuanian champions for the first time in 2025 and not to be confused with Zalgiris Vilnius, host Besiktas three down from the Tupras Stadium, where Hyeon-gyu Oh, Michael Murillo and Orkun Kokcu scored. A win or a draw takes Besiktas through; Kauno Zalgiris reach the Conference League league phase either way, only the second Lithuanian club to get that far.