Bodø/Glimt vs Roma match facts

Redrawn against each other in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa Conference League after meeting in the group stage, Bodø/Glimt welcome Roma back to the Arctic Circle with the Norwegian champions hoping for a repeat of a stunning victory against the Italian heavyweights back in October.

• Bodø/Glimt went unbeaten through their group in the autumn, yet their 12-point tally was sufficient only to earn the runners-up spot behind a Roma side they sensationally defeated 6-1 in northern Norway on Matchday 3. There was more giant-killing from Kjetil Knutsen's side in the knockout round play-offs as they convincingly eliminated Celtic, winning both legs (3-1 a, 2-0 h), before an extra-time success took them past Group D winners AZ Alkmaar (2-1 h, 2-2 a) and into a first European quarter-final.

• Despite the shock of that heavy defeat in Norway, plus a 2-2 draw in the Stadio Olimpico return, Roma pipped Bodø/Glimt to top spot in UEFA Europa Conference League Group C, hitting 18 goals – the most of any team in the group stage – before edging past Vitesse in the round of 16 (1-0 a, 1-1 h) thanks to a decisive late strike in Rome from the competition's leading scorer, Tammy Abraham.

Previous meetings
• Bodø/Glimt's 6-1 win against Roma on 24 October, in which Ola Solbakken scored twice, sent shockwaves around European football, and the Norwegian champions proved it was no flash in the pan by holding José Mourinho's side to a 2-2 draw in the Italian capital two weeks later, with Solbakken again on target.

• Bodø/Glimt had faced Italian opposition on seven previous occasions before that autumn double-header with Roma, losing six of the games and winning the other – 3-2 against Sampdoria in Oslo in the 1994/95 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup first round first leg, a tie they lost 4-3 on aggregate. Last season they gave AC Milan a tough test in the UEFA Europa League third qualifying round, losing 3-2 at San Siro in the one-off tie to make it four defeats out of four against Italian opponents in UEFA knockout ties.

• Roma's one UEFA encounter with a Norwegian club before this season also took place in the Arctic Circle, yielding a 2-1 win against Tromsø in the opening game of the 2005/06 UEFA Cup group stage.

Form guide
Bodø/Glimt
• Champions of Norway for the first time in 2020, when they stormed to victory by 19 points, Bodø/Glimt made their debut in a UEFA group stage during the autumn as well as successfully defending their domestic title. This season's European campaign, in which this is their 19th match, is the longest in the club's history.

• After concluding their first European adventure for 16 years in last season's UEFA Europa League with that narrow defeat by Milan, Knutsen's side lost this season's UEFA Champions League first qualifying round tie to Legia Warszawa, but subsequently eliminated Valur, Prishtina and Žalgiris Vilnius to reach the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage, where they were won all three home games – including that astonishing victory against Roma – and drew all three away, though failure to win at Zorya Luhansk on Matchday 6 (1-1) enabled the Italian club to leapfrog them to the top of the final standings. They added two more wins in the knockout play-offs as they eliminated Celtic, before a first European goal for Icelandic defender Alfons Sampsted proved decisive in knocking AZ out of the round of 16.

• The Norwegian title holders have won 11 of their 13 European home games this century (D1 L1), including all eight in the UEFA Europa Conference League, in which they have scored 21 goals and conceded just three.

Roma
• Roma finished seventh in Serie A last season, 29 points behind champions Inter, to become Italy's first UEFA Europa Conference League representatives. After topping their 2020/21 UEFA Europa League group, which included Young Boys, CFR Cluj and CSKA-Sofia, Paulo Fonseca's side eliminated Braga, Shakhtar Donetsk and Ajax in the knockout phase, only to fall to Manchester United in the semi-finals.

• Now led by another Portuguese coach, Mourinho, Roma won both legs of their UEFA Europa Conference League play-off against Trabzonspor, and although Bodø/Glimt got the better of them in their Group C head-to-head encounters, the Giallorossi took maximum points off both CSKA-Sofia (5-1 h, 3-2 a) and Zorya (3-0 a, 4-0 h) to finish a point ahead of their Norwegian rivals at the top of the group.

• This is Roma's 14th appearance in a UEFA quarter-final. They have won just five of the previous 13, although those include the last two – against Barcelona on away goals in the 2017/18 UEFA Champions League (1-4 a, 3-0 h) and Ajax in last season's UEFA Europa League (2-1 a, 1-1 h).

• Defeated 6-2 by Manchester United at Old Trafford in the first leg of last season's UEFA Europa League semi-final, Roma have nevertheless won nine of their last 12 European away matches, scoring at least two goals in all of those victories except the most recent, in Arnhem. Indeed, they have found the net in all of their last 19 European away fixtures, since a 3-0 defeat at Real Madrid on Matchday 1 of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League.

Links and trivia
• Roma's 6-1 defeat at Bodø/Glimt in October was the first official match in which a team managed by Mourinho had ever conceded six goals.

• Roma striker Abraham is the top scorer in the UEFA Europa Conference League, group stage to final, with seven goals, one more than Bodø/Glimt's Solbakken and Cyriel Dessers of Feyenoord.

• Erik Botheim, who, like Solbakken, scored three goals for Bodø/Glimt against Roma in the group stage, has since left the club for Russian side Krasnodar, as has another scorer in the home game, Patrick Berg, who has joined Lens.

• Eight clubs made their European group stage debut in the UEFA Europa Conference League this season, but Bodø/Glimt are the only one to have made it through to the quarter-finals. The Norwegian side registered the most points of all eight second-placed teams (12) and were the only runners-up to qualify undefeated.

• Bodø/Glimt are one of two reigning domestic champions participating in the UEFA Europa Conference League quarter-finals, the other 2020/21 Czech double winners Slavia Praha.

• Roma were 1-0 winners at Sampdoria in Serie A last Sunday afternoon, while Bodø/Glimt kicked off their Norwegian Eliteserien title defence later in the day with a 2-2 draw at home to Rosenborg.

• The winners of this tie will face Leicester City or PSV Eindhoven in the semi-final.