Olympiacos and Slovan Bratislava are ready to lock horns in the battle for a place in the UEFA Europa League group stage.
Both Olympiacos and Slovan Bratislava are hoping to redeem themselves after respective UEFA Champions League eliminations.
While the Champions League failure is by no means a disaster for the Slovakian champions, the loss to Ludogorets was certainly a big shock for Olympiacos.
Greek champions featured the group phase of the strongest continental competition in three of the last four years.
They have been in the group phase of either Champions League or Europa League (UEFA Cup) in every single season since the 1996/97 season.
Are they in danger of missing out on one of these two competitions this time around?
The head coach Pedro Martins certainly has plenty of reasons to be worried after the unlucky elimination at the hands of Ludogorets (3-3 on aggregate, loss on penalties), but his job would be well on the line in case of another slip-up here.
Olympiacos’ back line generally looked decent in both pre-season and the second qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League (a 2-0 aggregate win over Neftchi Baku), but the team then went on to ship three goals over two legs against Bulgarian champions.




译文(自动翻译仅供参考):

奥林匹亚科斯和布拉迪斯拉发已经准备好在欧联杯小组赛争夺一席之地。
奥林匹亚科斯和布拉迪斯拉发都希望在各自的欧冠淘汰赛后能够挽回自己。
虽然冠军联赛的失利对斯洛伐克冠军来说绝不是一场灾难，但输给卢多戈莱茨对奥林匹亚科斯来说无疑是一个巨大的打击。
在过去四年中有三年，希腊冠军在欧洲最强的小组赛中胜出。
自1996/97赛季以来，他们每个赛季都在欧洲冠军联赛或欧洲联盟杯的小组赛阶段。
这次他们是否有可能错过这两场比赛中的一场呢?
在不幸被卢多戈雷特淘汰后(总比分3-3，点球失利)，主教练佩德罗·马丁斯当然有很多理由感到担心，但如果在这里再次出现失误，他的工作将岌岌可危。
奥林匹亚科斯的后防线在季前赛和欧洲冠军联赛资格赛第二轮(总比分2-0战胜内夫奇·巴库)中都表现不错，但随后在与冠军保加利亚的两回合比赛中攻入三球。