Odense BK were thoroughly beaten last time they met Villarreal CF over two legs, but Henrik Clausen’s side will look to make amends in the UEFA Champions League play-offs.
The Danish side withstood a barrage of Villarreal pressure to snatch a first-leg lead thanks to Hans Henrik Andreasen’s 84th-minute effort.
The sides met in second round of the 2004 UEFA Intertoto Cup, Manuel Pellegrini’s Villarreal winning 3-0 in the first leg in Aarhus and then 2-0 at home. Current Odense BK left-back Chris Sørensen was an unused substitute in the first leg but featured in the second fixture, along with Villarreal’s Argentinian defender Gonzalo Rodríguez.
In addition to two defeats against FC Barcelona in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1970, OB have met Spanish sides in 12 UEFA games with the record W3 D1 L8 (W1 D0 L5 away).
Their crowning achievement in those fixtures was their famous defeat of Real Madrid CF in the 1994/95 UEFA Cup third round, when they overturned a 3-2 home reverse with a 2-0 win at the Santiago Bernabéu on 6 December 1994 − a feat still known in Denmark as ‘The Miracle in Madrid’.
Villarreal played an Aalborg BK side featuring Odense BK‘s Andreas Johansson in the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League, winning 6-3 at home and drawing 2-2 in Denmark. Diego López, Gonzalo Rodríguez, Ángel López, Bruno Soriano, Rubén Cani, Marcos Senna and Giuseppe Rossi all played in those fixtures, with Rossi on target in both games.
Villarreal are unbeaten in nine home games at El Madrigal − the last eight of them wins − dating back to December 2009 and FC Salzburg’s 1-0 victory in the 2009/10 UEFA Europa League group stage.
OB’s 4-3 third qualifying round win at Panathinaikos FC ended a three-game run of defeats on the road in UEFA competition.