Thursday night will see Torino host Athletic Club at the Stadio Olimpico in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League Round-of-32 fixture.
The fixture will mark the first meeting of the two sides in a European competition.
The Granata have taken many people by surprise this season with their performances in Serie A and also their group phase games in the Europa League.
The summer losses of Alessio Cerci and Ciro Immobile had many believing Giampiero Ventura’s men would struggle this year, but the opposite has proven to be true, and they will come into the game on Thursday full of confidence following victories in recent weeks against Inter, Hellas Verona and the demolition of Sampdoria.
On the contrary, Thursday’s visitors sit in 13th place in La Liga and as they have been massively under-performing this season.
They are, rather embarrassingly, behind fellow Basque club Eibar in the standings, who are minnows in comparison to Athletic. The Bilbao club’s poor showing continued on the weekend as they were held to a scoreless draw against relegation battling Granada, who currently find themselves in La Liga’s drop zone.
The Italian side qualified for the knockout phase after finishing second in Group B alongside Club Brugge, and ahead of HJK Helsinki and FC Copenhagen, as they lost just one of their six games.
Ventura’s men are yet to taste defeat in 2015, and have not lost a match since Andrea Pirlo’s last minute strike sealed all three points for Juventus in November’s Derby Della Mole.
The Basque side come into the Round-of-32 after finishing third in their Champions League group, behind Porto and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Ernesto Valverde’s side will look to take confidence from the fact that they have already seen off Serie A opposition this season in Europe, as they knocked Napoli out in the final Champions League qualification round.
Toro are on an winning run of four games against Spanish opposition, and are without a defeat in their last nine home European matches, without conceding in their last eight.
Ventura will have the leisure of having a whole squad of players to choose from, while the Spanish side will be forced to do without midfielder Ander Iturraspe and attacker Guillermo Fernandez.
Expected Starting XIs
Torino (5-3-2): Padelli; Peres, Maksimovic, Glik, Moretti, Darmian; Benassi, El Kaddouri, Farnerud; Martinez, Quagliarella.
Athletic Club (4-2-3-1): Iraizoz; Iraola, Laporte, Gurpegi, Balenziaga; San Jose, Mikel Rico; Susaeta, Unai Lopez, Muniain; Aduriz.
