SK Rapid Wien will meet the Bosnian club FK Borac Banja Luka in the round of 16 of the UEFA Europa Conference League. This was the result of the draw on Friday in Nyon, Switzerland. Borac is currently in second place in the Bosnian championship. The matches are scheduled for March 6 and 13, with Rapid hosting the return leg at the Allianz Stadium. The Hütteldorfer finished the league phase as the fourth-best team and thus enter the knockout round as a seeded team.

What if Rapid Succeeds Against Borac?

In the quarter-finals, Rapid would face the winner of the Cypriot-Swedish duel Paphos FC against Djurgardens, and in the semi-finals, top favorite Chelsea could be the opponent. The teams in the other half of the bracket could only meet the Viennese in the final. The most well-known names there are Betis Sevilla (in the round of 16 against Vitoria Guimaraes) and AC Fiorentina (Panathinaikos Athens). Furthermore, FC Lugano will face NK Celje from Slovenia, and the Polish representative Jagiellonia Bialystok will meet Cercle Brugge with ex-Rapid coach Ferdinand Feldhofer.

His successor Robert Klauß sent an observer on Thursday to the 0:0 between Olimpija Ljubljana and Borac, which secured the Bosnians' advancement thanks to an aggregate score of 1:0. "A very unpleasant team," said the German, for whom the two round of 16 matches are currently not a priority. "Our analysts already know everything, I have not prepared myself yet. I only have LASK (note: opponent on Sunday) in mind," explained Klauß.

Borac with Ex-Rapid Player

Since last summer, the 31-year-old native of Salzburg, Stefan Savic, who was trained at Red Bull and briefly worked at LASK in 2015, has been under contract with Borac. Also in the Borac squad are ex-Rapid player Srdan Grahovac and former WSG Tirol professional Sandi Ogrinec. In the autumn, the club from the second-largest Bosnian city won against LASK at home with 2:1 in the league phase.

During the advancement against Ljubljana, there were riots, which is why it is not excluded that Borac will soon face a UEFA penalty. Rapid is already on probation after the incidents against FC Copenhagen in December. For this reason alone, it is probably not a disadvantage that Green-White did not draw the second possible opponent Panathinaikos. Both clubs share a close fan friendship - had this been intensely celebrated with pyrotechnics in the stadium in March, there would likely have been trouble from UEFA.

(APA/Red)

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