Leicester City look to keep their unbeaten home record intact as AEK Athens visit in the UEFA Europa League

In the final matchday of the group stage, Leicester City face AEK Athens with an unbeaten home record still intact. The Foxes are through to the Round of 32 but will want to end the group stage on a positive note.

On their return to European football, the Foxes have made one step forward as they qualified for the Europa League knockout stages two games early.

Their last outing in the Europa League did not go to plan though. Leicester travelled to the Slavutych-Arena in Ukraine to face Zorya Luhansk.

Both sides had a large number of chances that they could have scored from, but it was the Ukrainian side that took the lead with six minutes to go.

After James Justin’s chance at the other end, the hosts took their chance with quality and purpose. Denys Favorov found substitute Allahyar Sayyadmanesh who slotted the ball into the back of the net and scored after only being on the pitch three minutes.

Zorya held on to their one-goal lead until the very end and took their second win in the Europa League and back-to-back wins in the competition as they beat Leicester’s final opponents in the Group Stage 3-0 at the Athens Olympic Stadium.

AEK Athens have not had the best of Europa League campaigns as they also make a return to European football after a one-year absence.

Their only win coming against Zorya Luhansk with an impressive 4-1 victory against the third-best team in Ukraine last season.

The Greek outfits last game in the Europa League was against Leicester City’s top of the group contender, S.C Braga.

Os Arcebispos got off to a fantastic start in the match. Vitor Tormena gave the Portuguese side the lead after seven minutes and Ricardo Esgaio two minutes later to give them a very comfortable two-goal lead.

After the half-hour mark, Nelson Oliveira responded with a goal that reduced the deficit Athenian side as they looked to chase after an equaliser.

Ricardo Horta’s goal restored the two-goal deficit that Braga had for most of the first half and the Portuguese team took that two-goal lead into the half-time interval.

In the dying embers of the game, Galeno scored to take the game to 4-1 in Braga’s favour and Stavros Vasilantonopoulos’ goal in the 89th minute was only a consolation for the Greek side as they went on to lose the fixture 4-2.

The last time these two met was on Matchday Two back at the end of October as the Foxes travelled to the Greek capital.

AEK looked to control the possession in the game at home, but Jamie Vardy took matters into his own hands. A brilliant through ball by James Maddison found the forward running into the penalty area. The Englishman looked to pounce on the perfectly waited pass until the on-rushing Panagiotis Tsintotas brought Vardy down in the area.

The striker slotted his penalty into the bottom corner of Tsintotas’ goal with precision and power even though the AEK Athens goalkeeper was able to get both hands to it, but was unable to keep it out.

Marko Livaja had two great chances to score for the Greek outfit. One was a header which Kaspar Schmeichel was equal to and parried the shot away from the goal and the second was a shot that was dragged just wide of the Leicester goal after defenders, Wes Morgan and Christian Fuchs, had a bit of a mix up which enabled Livaja to take the ball and take the shot on.

Leicester would double their lead in the 39th minute. Maddison’s cross went all the way across to Hamza Choudhury who put the ball into the back of the net on his first Europa League start.

Muamer Tanković restored one-goal for AEK four minutes into the second half, but it was not enough for them to come out with anything from that game as the Foxes returned to England with the three points.

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