PSV Eindhoven begin their 2014/15 Europa League campaign as they take on Austrian side St Polten in the first leg of the Europa League third qualifying round at the Phillips Stadium on Thursday night.
PSV have a respectable European background with European Cup success in 1988 and a UEFA Cup win in 1978 but It's been a while since they have had any real impact in Europe. Their last notable achievement came in 2005 where they made the Champions League semi-finals and were agonisingly beaten on away goals by AC Milan. The Europa League has been the competition they tend to feature in these days but they have struggled in recent years with anything beyond the quarter-finals being to much to ask for the Dutch side.
Their opponents, SKN St Polten, are an Austrian second division side who qualified for this competition via their domestic cup, where they reached the final last season. The minnows have absolutely no European history and this will be their first ever season competing in Europe. St Polten defeated Hungarian side Botev Plovdiv in the last round to set up this tie with PSV.
Predicted Lineups:
PSV: Zoet, Brenet, Bruma, Hendrix, Willems, Schaars, Hijlemaark, Maher, Jozefzoon, Locadia, Narsingh.
St Polten: Kostner, Grasegger, Huber, Wisio, Holzmann, Parada, Kerschbaumer, Harti, Ambichl, Hofbauer, Segovia.
Phillip Cocu's PSV side had a season to forget in Europe last season. Admittedly, they were unlucky to have been beaten by AC Milan in the Champions Leage playoff round but their Europa League run was a complete disaster. PSV were drawn in a relatively straightforward looking group alongside Dinamo Zagreb, Chernomorets and Ludogorets. Most people were expecting them to easily progress but they only managed to pick up seven points from their six games, which was only good enough for third place.
Rather coincidentally, PSV and St Polten met in a friendly a few weeks ago as part of PSVs tour of Austria. Phillip Cocu fielded a fairly understrength lineup for the game, with a number of youth players featuring, and the Dutch side comfortably won the game 1-0.
Should PSV get through this tie, it's likely they will be a seeded team for the playoff round. At the moment, there are no potential opponents for Phillip Cocu's side as the seedings have not been finalised yet.
PSV will be without a few key players for this game who are just returning from World Cup duties so Phillip Cocu will be relying on their front three to try and put this tie to bed as early as possible.Jurgen Locadia may be preferred to Luuk de Jong up front and the youngster will be looking to get his season off to a flying start. Florian Jozefzoon and Luciano Narsingh are likely to operate on the wings and their pace could be a huge advantage for PSV.
Daniel Segovia is without a doubt the key man for St Polten. He's scored all three of their goals in the competition so far and will definitely be the main threat to the PSV back-four. The Spanish striker has rejoined St Polten this summer after leaving in 2013, where he scored 29 goals in 48 games for the club.
Its difficult to see any other outcome than a comprehensive PSV win in this game. Its very unlikely St Polten will be any threat to them and if PSV's attacking game is on point, then this could end in a huge scoreline. 4-0 is my prediction.