Red Bull Salzburg find their feet to ease past Club Brugge

The performances of Red Bull Salzburg in Europe over the last few seasons have been superb. They have still to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League, but they have more than found their feet in the Europa League. Last season saw the Austrian side play their way into the semi-finals before unfortunately crashing out against Marseille.

This season has seen Salzburg again play in the Europa League and they won a difficult group including RB Leipzig, Celtic and Rosenborg. The draw for the first knockout round saw them face a Club Brugge side who had impressed in stages in a difficult Champions League group that saw them face Monaco, Dortmund and Atletico Madrid.

The difficulty that Salzburg have in European competition is that the winter break in Austrian domestic football stretches into February and as such, they have a lack of match practice when the knockout stages start. Indeed, this lack of game time was obvious in the first leg of this match where Club Brugge came away with a 2-1 victory.

Now, it fell to Salzburg to save the tie in the home leg. Salzburg coach Marco Rose has impressed hugely since taking on the role at the start of the 2017/18 season. Domestically Salzburg are dominant but the challenge comes in trying to go as far in Europe as possible. First, though, they had to overcome the Belgian side.

Lineups

The Austrian side have a defined structure and play with a 4-diamond-2 system. The key to the system lies in the midfield with the Malian midfielder Diadie Samassekou playing as the six at the base of the midfield. He acts as the controlling midfielder when Salzburg are in possession. Xaver Schlager and Zlatko Junuzovic provide width and vertical runs while Hannes Wolf plays at the tip of the diamond, although he often makes runs beyond the attackers.

Club Brugge played in a 3-5-2 in possession but out of possession, the two wing-backs drop back to form a 5-3-2.