Into the heat of Cyprus with a narrow lead

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FC Red Bull Salzburg

·11 August 2026

Into the heat of Cyprus with a narrow lead

Second leg of third qualifying round at Pafos

We go into Thursday's match against Pafos FC with a 1-0 lead from the first leg, but that's only half the battle on the road to the play-offs. We'll definitely remember the long two-hour delay due to torrential rain. We're not expecting such a deluge in Cyprus for the second leg: the forecast promises – besides plenty of excitement – heat, dryness and sunshine.

However, that's not the only supposed home advantage for the hosts. We picked up some knocks in the first leg, and the away draw against WAC is still weighing on us, while David Luiz and his teammates had a weekend off. Pafos coach Ricardo Sa Pinto will have to do without Sema, who came on for the injured Quina last week, due to a red card he received in the first leg.

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As Pafos's home ground doesn't meet UEFA regulations, the team will travel almost 45 minutes east by car from the port city to the modern Alphamega Stadium in Limassol. However, the stadium hasn't seen a huge number of spectators in recent European matches - only 4,169 fans attended the dramatic 4-0 home win after extra time against Hajduk Split in the second qualifying round.

Anyone travelling from Salzburg to support us live can find all the important information here:

to the away info

The match kicks off at 19:00 CEST (20:00 local time) and will be officiated by a Portuguese refereeing team led by the well-known referee Joao Pinheiro. In Austria, ServusTV and ServusTV On will broadcast the game. Internationally, the match can be watched – apart from in certain excluded counties – via an RBS TV live stream on our YouTube channel.

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Injury news

Johannes Moser (adductors) is unavailable for this match
Injured from the first leg against Pafos are Enrique Aguilar (forearm), as well as Soumaila Diabate and Gaoussou Diakite (both thigh), who will be out for several weeks. Edmund Baidoo's (thigh) availability is still in doubt.
Anrie Chase, Stefan Lainer, and Justin Omoregie are currently participating in parts of team training again

Views

It will be important for us to play very proactively away from home as well. We can't let them push us around. We're facing a very experienced team that can put us under pressure, especially at home and at the right moments. They will likely create chances from set pieces and long balls. We have to defend all of that consistently. We're ready for this match. We gave them very few moments at home, and we'll try to impose our style of play and maintain a high intensity there as well.

Danny Röhl

Pafos showed how dangerous they can be at home recently against Hajduk Split, where they ultimately won 4-0. For us, that means we have to be focused from the first minute. We're playing against a very experienced team that has great quality at set pieces and long balls. However, we have more pace and more dynamism, which we absolutely want to exploit. It will also be important that we convert our scoring opportunities more effectively than we have recently.

Karim Konate