Egnatia and Partizani are the two Albanian teams playing in European competitions this week, following the elimination of Tirana and Vllaznia in the previous round. Egnatia, after being knocked out of the Champions League, will compete in the Conference League against Vikingur Reykjavik, the current Icelandic champions and league leaders. In the most recent round of the Icelandic championship, played during the spring-fall season, Vikingur lost 1-0 to Akureyri and now has only three points more than second-place Breidablik, with Valur trailing by five points but having one less match played. The first leg will be held in Reykjavik on Thursday at 20:45 Albanian time, at the Vikingsvöllur stadium, which has a capacity of 1,100 seats.

Over 6,300 kilometers away, in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, Partizani will face Iberia 1999. The two teams have met in the Conference League in July two years ago, and then the Georgians, then called Saburtalo, went ahead as the Tbilisi region they represent. Partizan won 1-0 in Tbilisi, Saburtalo responded with the same result in Tirana and won on penalties. In the current championship of Georgia, which is also played in spring-autumn but has been interrupted since the beginning of June, Iberia holds the third place, with 32 points, 7 points below the first place, after three consecutive defeats. The Iberia-Partizani match will be played on Thursday at 19:00 Albanian time, at the Mikheil Meskhi stadium, with a capacity of 27,223 seats.

/k.s/