Russia (bbabo.net), - Zenit St. Petersburg will be the first Russian club to play an official match this year on February 17: Sergei Semak's team will host Betis in the Europa League play-off.

To be frank, Zenit was not lucky with the lot. Getting into the 1/8 finals of the "blue-white-blue" will be very difficult, because in her rivals she has one of the leaders of the Spanish Examples. Real Betis have been in great shape this season, with the Sevillians in third place in the league with 45 goals (only Real Madrid have more with 48). In four of the last six matches, the White-Greens have scored four goals.

At the same time, Betis went to St. Petersburg far from being in the optimal composition. In particular, Sergio Canales and 2018 world champion Frenchman Nabil Fekir will miss today's match. However, according to the head coach of “Zenith” Sergei Semak, the Spaniards have someone to replace the stars.

- Probably, the absence of Fekir and Canales will somehow be reflected in their game: it will change, there will be players with other qualities. In general, "Betis" is now good, the team has excellent performers in the attacking line. This is the third club in Spain - the most serious level, - said Semak.

In addition to the match in St. Petersburg, in parallel in the play-off round of the League there will be a number of meetings: Sheriff (Moldova) - Braga (Portugal), Borussia (Dortmund, Germany) - Rangers (Scotland), Barcelona (Spain) - Napoli (Italy), Porto (Portugal) - Lazio (Italy), Atalanta (Italy) - Olympiacos (Greece), Sevilla (Spain) - Dynamo ( Zagreb, Croatia) and Leipzig (Germany) - Real Sociedad (Spain). The return games will take place in a week. Recall that the winners of these pairs will go to the 1/8 finals of the Europa League, where they will be waiting for the victors of the LE groups, among which there is Spartak Moscow.

Meanwhile, "Paris Saint-Germain" beat at home Madrid "Real" in the first leg of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League. Kylian Mbappé scored the only goal in stoppage time - 1:0. This goal was Mbappe's 32nd in the Champions League. In total, he participated in 53 goals in 52 meetings of the tournament.

In a parallel match, the leaders of the championship of England "Manchester City" defeated the Lisbon "Sporting" on the road with a score of 5:0. Return matches in these pairs are scheduled for March 9.

Where will we watch

Thursday, February 17 "Match TV"

20.45. Europa League. Zenit (Russia) - Betis (Spain). Live Stream.

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