After getting no points from their first three Group A games, Banská Bystrica’s chances of advancing are slipping away, but if they want to keep their slim hopes alive they need all three points from this visit from Salzburg - a team that beat them 5-0 in Austria last Sunday. On Friday night, Banská Bystrica came close to getting their first point, losing 1-0 at home to Wolfsburg.

“We’re glad we have our fans. They were fantastic throughout the game,” head coach Vladimír Országh said of the fans in Banská Bystrica on Friday night, with more of the same expected on Sunday. “We wanted to pay them back with a better performance than in Salzburg. When playing 5-on-5 it was a decent effort from our side, but we need to work on our power play if we want to get better results.”

As for Salzburg, they’ve only got one win from their first three games, but they’ve already got their two games against group leaders Tappara out of the way, so there are definitely plenty of points left on the table for them to pick up in their last four games, starting in Banská Bystrica. If they win this one, second place in the group will probably be determined by the home-and-away with Wolfsburg to finish the group stage.

“I thought tonight we were a lot better defensively,” Salzburg coach Greg Poss said of his team’s 4-2 loss in Tampara, compared with the loss at home to open the group. “We just need to be a little more effective on the power play and we took a few too many penalties, which really wore us down at the end.”