One of the most attractive ties in the last-16 stage of the Europa Conference League will get underway on Tuesday evening, with Lazio hosting AZ Alkmaar for the first leg of their contest.

Lazio are currently second in the Serie A table and will enter this match off the back of a morale-boosting 1-0 win over the runaway leaders Napoli, while AZ are second in the Eredivisie table behind Feyenoord.

Lazio’s quest to keep the UEFA Europa Conference League (UECL) trophy in Rome by emulating their city rivals Roma, who took the trophy home last season, continued with a 1-0 aggregate victory over Cluj in the knockout round.

Those two legs form part of a run of impressive defensive displays that have seen Lazio notch an incredible streak of around eight hours of play without conceding a goal (W4, D1), which includes a 1-0 win against runaway Serie A leaders Napoli last time out.

Key battle: Lazio may look to one of their big Serie A goal contributors Mattia Zaccagni (G8, A4) for an outlet, yet he was remarkably the recipient of a yellow card in five straight games during a sequence ending last month!

Looking to stop him will be AZ full-back Milos Kerkez, who returns to Italy after a spell in AC Milan’s youth system. He had a hand in a third of AZ’s group stage goals (G1, A3).

Hot streak: Excluding qualifiers, AZ are winless across their last nine European knockout games (D3, L6), an ongoing negative club record.

Lazio Europa Conference League form:

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Lazio form (all competitions):

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AZ Alkmaar Europa Conference League form:

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AZ Alkmaar form (all competitions):

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Lazio possible starting lineup:

Provedel; Marusic, Patric, Romagnoli, Hysaj; Milinkovic-Savic, Vecino, Alberto; Anderson, Immobile, Zaccagni

AZ Alkmaar possible starting lineup:

Ryan; Sugawara, Goes, Hatzidiakos, Kerkez; Reijnders, Mihailovic, Mijnans; Odgaard, Pavlidis, Karlsson

Lazio vs  AZ Alkmaar over 1.5 goals FT

AZ will be aware of the size of the challenge facing them in this tie, and while we are expecting it to be close overall, Lazio are likely to have too much for their opponents in the first leg of their encounter. As a result, we are backing a 2-0 success for Sarri’s team on Tuesday night.