After the draw was made for the UEFA Europa League knockout playoffs, we now know we are again bound for Italy. In February 2023 we are to face AS Roma, the 2021/22 UEFA Europa Conference League winners.
Sporting director Christoph Freund, Coach Matthias Jaissle and captain Andreas Ulmer shared their first impressions on the draw today.
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The draw sees us play another really top Italian club. We recently played a team from the north [AC Milan] and now we are going further south. Roma have a combined squad value of around €400m and a star coach. They won the Conference League last year and have loads of international experience. It will be a big and exciting challenge.
It will be a real cracker that we are really looking forward to. Roma won the Conference League in the summer and are around the top of one of the best leagues in the world. They are an absolute top team. They have one of the best and most successful coaches in the world in Jose Mourinho. We definitely won't go into the games as favourites, but we will try to play bravely and put our own style of football out onto the pitch.
I think that Roma are really exciting opponents and will be a big challenge. We have the first leg at home, which is not an advantage, and it would have been nicer to play the second leg here. As was the case in Milan recently, there should be a lot of Salzburg fans there in Rome hopefully. We definitely want to play our own style of football.
