- Oct 17, 2006
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Official Site Match Centre
TEAM FORM: Pacos - DWWLL ----- Spurs WWDWW --- ( (All Competitions)
We start what we hope will be a season-long Europa Conference League campaign with a fixture against Paco De Ferreira tonight on Thursday night. We travel to Portugal for the first leg with the reverse fixture taking place in North London next week. Having had to fend off questions regarding Kane since his arrival, Nuno would have been relieved to finally get the season underway against Manchester City at the weekend.
There were fears that we lacking the presence of Kane, we would succumb tamely to the Premier League champions, but we were deserved victors at home. Despite the manner of our success, Nuno will stress that he will take one game at a time, particularly with this European double-header taking place either side of a return to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday. While some have questioned the need for a third continental competition, Nuno will view it as an opportunity to end our wait for silverware.
However, before we can think about a prolonged run in the tournament, We must focus on overcoming arguably the toughest team that we could have faced at this stage. Although Pacos de Ferreira are competing in Europe for the first time since 2013-14, they deserve respect after their fifth-placed finish in Portugal's top flight last season. Monday's 3-0 reverse at Boavista will concern Jorge Simao, who would have expected Os Castores to build on their opening-day success against Famalicao.
Pacos de Ferreira have now lost successive games in all competitions without scoring a goal, preparation which is less than ideal for a game of his magnitude. Denilson started the campaign with three goals from two games, but the forward has now gone three without scoring.
Team News
We said that Kane would play no part of this fixture, the focus instead being on featuring against Wolves at the weekend. Nuno is expected to make widespread changes from the team which started against Man City, handing full debuts to the likes of Pierluigi Collini, Cristian Romera and Bryan Gil.
Lo Celso could also be brought into the starting lineup, but Son is likely to keep his position down the middle of the attack.
Having made four alterations by the 70th minute against Boavista, Simao could make a number of changes to his Pacos de Ferreira XI. Helder Ferreira, Ze Uilton, Joao Pedro and Douglas Tanque are all in contention for appearances in the team.
Head to Head
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