Sheriff Tiraspol vs Viktoria Plzen – 02/08/2022
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The third qualifying round for the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League gets underway this week. On Tuesday, Moldovan champions Sheriff Tiraspol host Czech champions Viktoria Plzen.
Sheriff have already come through two qualifying rounds to reach this stage, seeing off Bosnian club Zrinjski before overcoming Slovenian side Maribor.
Mějte se, vidíme se v ??! ??♂️ pic.twitter.com/sdxPPsybdq
— FC Viktoria Plzeň (@fcviktorkaplzen) August 1, 2022
As for Viktoria, they entered qualifying in the second round – thrashing Finnish outfit HJK Helsinki 7-1 on aggregate to book their place in the third round.
Sheriff kicked of their qualifying campaign with a 1-0 aggregate win over Zrinjski. In the second round, the Transnistrians beat Maribor by the same score.
The 2022/23 Moldovan top-flight season started last weekend, with Sheriff notching a 1-1 draw against Zimbru Chisinau.
Thanks to a recent run of positive results – and a strong end to the previous campaign – Sheriff head into Tuesday’s clash on a 16-games unbeaten streak in all competitions.
Having picked up 11 wins and five draws since their last loss, the Transnistrians will be confident of punching their ticket to the 2022/23 Champions League.
That said, Viktoria Plzen will also fancy their chances of qualifying for the competition after crushing HJK 7-1 in the previous round.
After claiming a 2-1 away victory in the first leg, the Czech champions hammered HJK 5-0 on home soil – with Jan Sykora bagging a brace.
Like in Moldova, the Czech First League campaign kicked off last weekend. And like Sheriff, Viktoria started the season with a draw – drawing 2-2 with Teplice.
It is worth noting that Viktoria have scored a combined total of nine goals across their past three outings, averaging three goals per game during that period.
Head-to-head: This is the first competitive meetings between Sheriff and Viktoria Plzen, meaning we have no previous results to assess for this matchup.
Team news: Sheriff’s danger man is Momo Yansane, who bagged 12 goals and five assists in 30 games across all competitions last season.
Viktoria will be without the injured duo of Filip Kasa (knee surgery) and Petr Pesja (cruciate ligament rupture) on Tuesday.
Forebet predicts that the fixture will be low-scorring with Pilzen to grab the win.
