Roma vs Bodø/Glimt: UEFA Europa Conference League background, form guide, previous meetings

Roma must end their three-game winless run against Bodø/Glimt in the UEFA Europa Conference League if they are to reach the semi-finals, the Norwegian champions having struck late to win the first leg of the quarter-final 2-1 and maintain their perfect home record in the competition.

• Despite taking only one point off Bodø/Glimt in their two autumn encounters, Roma pipped their Norwegian rivals 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.

• 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 before holding them to a 2-2 draw in the Stadio Olimpico return. 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.

Previous meetings
• José Mourinho's side struck first in the Arctic Circle in the opening leg of the quarter-final, going ahead through Lorenzo Pellegrini just before half-time, but Bodø/Glimt equalised when Brice Wengambono's shot was diverted in off Ulrik Saltnes and then made it nine home wins out of nine in the UEFA Europa Conference League thanks to Hugo Vetlesen's late deflected header that made the final score 2-1.

• Bodø/Glimt's 6-1 win against Roma on 24 October, in which Ola Solbakken – absent from the quarter-final first leg – 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.

• Roma's one UEFA encounter with a Norwegian club before this season brought a 2-1 win away to Tromsø in the opening game of the 2005/06 UEFA Cup group stage.

• Bodø/Glimt had faced Italian opposition on seven previous occasions before this season, 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. The 2-2 draw at Roma in November was the first time in five visits to Italy that Bodø/Glimt managed to avoid defeat.

Form guide
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).

• A 0-2 defeat against holders Real Madrid in the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League group stage is the only one of their last 27 European fixtures in the Italian capital that Roma have lost, winning 19. The late equaliser against Vitesse means they are now unbeaten in 17 UEFA matches at the Olimpico (W11 D6).

• Roma's aggregate record is W8 L16 when they have been beaten away in the first leg of a UEFA tie, the most recent loss having come in last season's UEFA Europa League semi-final against Manchester United (2-6 a, 3-2 h). They do, however, have a positive record of W2 L1 when their first-leg away defeat has been by a 2-1 scoreline, the most recent instance bringing victory against Shakhtar Donetsk on away goals in the 2017/18 UEFA Champions League round of 16 (1-0 h). They also prevailed by the same method in the following round, famously knocking out Barcelona (1-4 a, 3-0 h).

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 20th match, is not only the longest in the club's history but also the joint longest of any team in UEFA club competition 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 win at Celtic was one of only two that Bodø/Glimt have recorded in their 12 European away games this century (D5 L5), although the extra-time draw in Alkmaar means they are unbeaten in their last six UEFA Europa Conference League fixtures on the road (W1 D5). Their only away defeat in the competition came at Prishtina (1-2) in the first leg of the third qualifying round. Home and away, the Norwegian champions are unbeaten in 14 European matches.

• Bodø/Glimt have won five of the six previous UEFA ties in which they carried a lead into the second away leg, the latest success coming after extra time against AZ last month in the round of 16 when they were also 2-1 first-leg winners – as they had been in the previous instance, when they defeated Levadia Tallinn on penalties in the 2004/05 UEFA Cup second qualifying round. The Norwegian side's one aggregate defeat, however, was by Italian opposition, Sampdoria coming back to knock them out of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in that 1994/95 first round tie (3-2 h, 0-2 a).

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, Cyriel Dessers of Feyenoord and Yira Sor of Slavia Praha.

• 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.

• Only four clubs had played 20 matches in UEFA club competition in a single season before Bodø/Glimt this term – Bordeaux in 1995/96, Villarreal in 2004/05, Basel in 2012/13 and Salzburg in 2017/18.

• Roma made it 11 successive Serie A games without defeat on Sunday when they came from behind to score two late goals and win 2-1 at home to bottom club Salernitana, while Bodø/Glimt's second game of the new Norwegian Eliteserien campaign brought them their first victory – 2-1 away to Sandefjord.

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

Penalty shoot-outs
• Roma's record in four UEFA penalty shoot-outs is W1 L3:
4-2 v Norrköping, 1982/83 UEFA Cup second round
3-4 v Liverpool, 1983/84 European Champion Clubs’ Cup final
3-4 v Real Zaragoza, 1986/87 European Cup Winners’ Cup first round
6-7 v Arsenal, 2008/09 UEFA Champions League round of 16

• Bodø/Glimt's record in one UEFA penalty shoot-out is W1 L0:
8-7 v Levadia Tallinn, 2004/05 UEFA Cup second qualifying round