Feyenoord vs Sparta Praha preview, team news, tickets and prediction

Feyenoord will welcome Sparta Praha to De Kuip Feyenoord on December 11th in one of the match-day 6 games in the UEFA Champions League.

At of the time of writing, Feyenoord are 21st in the Champions League table with 7 points from their first five games in the UCL, while Sparta Praha have four points and they are placed 28th with 4 points from the same number of matches.

Teams that finish between 9 and 24 will qualify for the playoffs, meaning both teams will be out to win it to avoid getting ceremoniously dumped out at this stage of the competition, although both till have 2 more games coming in January.

Feyenoord Form

Feyenoord Rotterdam have pulled some surprises in the UEFA Champions League this season, but all away from home. The Dutch side started their continental journey with a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Leverkusen, but they recovered to beat Girona 3-2 on the road and then won 3-1 at Benfica.

A shock 3-1 home defeat to Salzburg dampened the mood, but a creditable comeback from 3-0 down at the Etihad saw a 3-3 draw with Manchester City.

On the home front, they are also playing catch up to PSV as they have 28 points from 13 league games in the Eredivisie to sit 4th, 8 points behind the leaders.

Despite being the Eredivisie second highest scorers, Quinten Timber leads the goal scoring pack with just 4 goals. Admittedly the goals have been spread around a lot with 15 different scorers, and Igor Paixão second on 3 and also proving 5 assists.

Following that shock defeat to Salzburg on match day four in the UCL, David Hancko, Feyenoord defender, said to UEFA.com:

“Of course, it’s a big disappointment, because we saw this game as a huge step in our campaign. We were losing easy balls and also in our pressing situations we were not that sharp. And then when we get the ball we were not doing the right things.”

Hancko on missing players through injury:

“I think only four players who played here against AZ three days ago were in the same positions tonight. So we needed to change a lot, and it’s not even because the coach would try something new; this was necessary. It’s not easy, but we tried to do everything we could.”

Sparta Praha form

Sparta Prague started their season with the UEFA Champions League qualifiers to book their spot in the group stages properly. Železná Sparta defeated Shamrock Rovers 6-2 on aggregate to book their spot in the next round of the qualifiers.

In the following round, they faced FCSB and they went ahead to win 4-3 on aggregate in a tight contest to secure their spot in the final round where they faced Malmo. It was an easy fixture in the end as they won 4-0 on aggregate. It was a magnificent feat for the Czechs to go through the qualifiers without a defeat.

In the group stage proper they continued their fine form, beating Salzburg 3-0 at home with Nigerian Victor Olatunji scoring on his debut.

They followed that with a creditable 1-1 away to Stuttgart, before 3 humbling’s in a row with big loses to Manchester City and Atlético, a being exposed by Brest at home with a narrow 2-1 loss.

On the home front, Sparta, who are the defending champions, have been struggling in the Czech topflight as they are well off the top of the log. Železná Sparta are currently 4th in the table with 27 points from 15 league games with 8 wins, drawn three and lost the remaining four games.

Feyenoord vs Sparta Praha previous meetings

In their head-to-head, Feyenoord and Sparta Praha have met two times since 2012 with one win apiece.

Match tickets

This highly anticipated match at De Kuip in Rotterdam kicks off on Wednesday 11th December 2024, at 20:00 GMT.

The magnificent 51,177-capacity stadium is the place to be for this clash between the Dutch side and the Czech side.

Getting Feyenoord v Sparta Praha tickets could take a lot of work given the standard of this game. Hence, you are advised to search ticket reselling sites should they be expectedly sold out on each club’s channels.

Team news

Line-ups

Feyenoord will need their best legs to face off against one of the less fancied teams in the competition. Brian Priske could be missing the services of talisman Jordan Mvula Lotomba – who has scored three times in the competition – due to injury.

Ibrahim Osman is also another player who could miss the game due to being on the treatment table. Meanwhile, Ayase Ueda has been ruled out until the new year.

In their absence Anis Hadj Moussa and Zepiqueno Redmond will be called upon in attack.

Feyenoord XI: Timon Wellenreuther; Givairo Read, Gernot Trauner, David Hancko, Gijs Smal; In-Beom Hwang, Ramiz Zerrouki; Anis Hadj Moussa, Quinten Timber, Igor Paixao; Zepiqueno Redmond.

Goalkeeper Vindahl Peter has played virtually all the UCL games (including qualifiers) for Sparta at the time of writing and he is expected to be in goal on this trip as well. Vitik Martin and Laci Qazim are the other regulars who can help the side in this away game. In terms of injury doubts, Zeleny Jaroslav, Cobbaut Elias, Garcia Imanol, Sorensen Asger, Preciado Angelo, and Birmancevic Veljko are the players currently out injured. However, some could return to play a part in this game for coach Friis Lars.

Sparta Praha XI: Peter Jensen; Asger Sorensen, Filip Panak, Elias Cobbaut; Martin Suchomel, Kaan Kairinen, Lukas Sadilek, Matej Rynes; Lukas Haraslin, Jakub Pesek; Victor Olatunji.

Prediction

As of the time of writing, Feyenoord could be in contention for one of the places in the play-off stage making this fixture is a must-win game and Feyenoord tickets in high demand.

Sparta Praha are not expected to make it out of the group, but a win here would increase their chances.

Both teams are not that far apart in terms of points in the table and will not underestimate importance of this fixture. So it should be a tight contest with both teams fighting for every ball. But I’m picking Feyenoord to finally overcome their CL home form voodoo.

Feyenoord 2-1 Sparta Praha