Leicester City return to UEFA Europa League action on Thursday when they travel to Czech Republic to take on Slavia Prague in the Round of 32 stage. 

The Foxes secured qualification to this phase of the competition by winning four of their six group matches, which saw them top Group G ahead of SC Braga, AEK Athens and Zorya Luhansk.

Slavia progressed to the knockout phase after finishing second in their group behind Bayer Leverkusen. However, they come into the game having not lost any of their last 10 games, with their last defeat coming against the Germans in Europe and will no doubt provide the Foxes with a tricky test.

Following their sensational 3-1 comeback win over Liverpool on Saturday, Leicester will be looking to replicate a similar sort of result in Prague and take a giant step in reaching the next stage in a tournament which they’ve done well in so far.

Perfect start

After falling to a narrow defeat against Aston Villa in the Premier League, Leicester bounced back by beginning their Europa League campaign in the best possible way on October 22. Goals from James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Kelechi Iheanacho sealed a 3-0 victory over Zorya at King Power Stadium, with the latter also grabbing two assists and the Man of the Match award.

Although the Ukrainian outfit started on the front foot, Leicester’s individual quality shone through the end even without the injured Jamie Vardy and Wilfred Ndidi.

The Foxes backed up that good result with another win as they travelled to Athens a week later. Vardy returned to the side and scored the opener, before Hamza Choudhury netted the second as Leicester held on for a narrow 2-1 success in Greece to make it two victories from two.

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Back-to-back games against Braga

Having accumulated six points from a possible six, the Foxes hosted Braga in a top of the table clash and it proved to be a game full of high quality. City would come out with the victory as Iheanacho netted a brace, whilst Maddison and Dennis Praet also got onto the scoresheet in a convincing 4-0 success on Filbert Way.

The two sides would go onto meet three weeks later in Portugal and it was a much closer contest, but one which still gave spectators a feast of goalmouth action. In a topsy-turvy clash, Leicester came back from behind three times to claim a dramatic 3-3 draw, with Vardy scoring the all-important equaliser in the 95th-minute.

Barnes and Luke Thomas also netted on a historic night in Braga as the point ensured that Leicester sealed qualification to the Round of 32 stage with two games to spare.

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Rounding off the group

After securing their passage into the knockouts, Leicester slipped to their first defeat of the group when they travelled to Zorya. After making a number of changes, the Foxes weren’t at the races and fell to a narrow 1-0 loss thanks to a late strike from the home side on a cold evening in Eastern Europe.

However, Leicester made sure they were to top the group as they comfortably beat AEK 2-0 on December 10. An early finish from Barnes was added to by Cengiz Ünder’s first City goal at the King Power which made sure they would top the group ahead of the draw for the next round.

It has been a superb season in Europe for the Foxes thus far and considering the fixture schedule they’ve had to endure, Leicester have done well to operate on multiple fronts and hope to continue that going into the game in Prague. 

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