It’s finally arrived – Arsenal in the Europa League! Welcome Gooners, as we take a look ahead to our debut in the competition – our first European campaign outside the Champions League since 2000!

Here’s the posts from the last couple of days where I looked at Arsenal’s history in Europe outside the Champions League:

At 8:05pm tonight, Arsenal face FC Koln at the Emirates.

The Managers

Arsenal

Arsene Wenger on getting back into the CL through the EL: “It’s not the best chance, it is one of the opportunities. I’ve said many times that the best way to do it is through the Premier League. We don’t calculate that this is a way to qualify for the Champions League. We have done that for 20 years by doing it in the Premier League.”

On his disappointment in being in the Europa League: “No. The disappointment of not finishing in the Top Four was there of course. Unfortunately, we were one point short. We got 75 points last season. Overall I am humble enough to try and win every single competition.”

On the Chelsea game showing how we can cope with EL schedule: “Yes, it’s a good opportunity to show we can do it. We played on Wednesday night at Barcelona and then on Saturday morning at Everton and we won. You have to not get caught in your mind with preconceived ideas. In three days, you can recover.”

FC Koln

Austrian Peter Stoger is the current boss of FC Koln. A midfielder in his playing days, he spent his entire playing career in Austria before retiring in 2004. He won four league titles as a player and was part of the Rapid Wien side that got to the 1996 Cup Winners’ Cup Final – losing 1-0 to PSG in Brussels.

Stoger played 65 times in 11 years for the Austrian national side. He scored 15 goals for Austria, including a hat-trick against Ireland in a 1996 European Championships qualifier. It was one of two victories for Austria over Ireland, which all but ended our hopes of automatic qualification to the Euros. Ireland went to the play-offs and lost 2-0 to a Netherlands side featuring the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars.

In 2005, Stoger went into management. This included two spells in charge of Austria Wien before joining FC Koln in 2013. They won the German Second Division in his first season in charge. Koln have achieved a higher Bundesliga finish every year under Stoger – 12th, 9th and 5th. They qualified directly for the Europa League group stage – their first major European tournament in 25 years!

Team News

Arsenal

Francis Coquelin is definitely out of contention. He faces about three weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.

Plenty of first-team players could be rested ahead of the match with Chelsea. Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil will be “rested completely”, according to Wenger.

Alexis Sanchez and Jack Wilshere could feature as both look to return to full fitness.

FC Koln

Marcel Risse and Milos Jojic trained with the squad ahead of the Arsenal match this week. They both missed the Bundelsiga defeat to Augsburg last weekend.

Latvian striker Artjoms Rudnevs looks to be the biggest doubt in the Koln squad. He sat out training this week.

Head-to-Head

Arsenal and FC Koln have met just once before in an official European competition. That came over two legs in the 1971 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

Arsenal were the defending champions in the Fairs Cup but were eliminated in the quarter-final stage by Koln. Despite a 2-1 win at Highbury in the first leg, a 1-0 defeat in Germany saw Arsenal go out on the away goals rule.

In terms of European pedigree, Arsenal have an advantage. The Gunners have won a Fairs Cup and a Cup Winners’ Cup in the past, as well as reaching four other Finals in European competitions. Koln’s best performance in Europe came in 1986 when they were beaten by Real Madrid in the UEFA Cup Final.

Koln’s most recent participation in a major European competition was in 1992-93. They were beaten 3-2 on aggregate by Celtic in the UEFA Cup first round.

Koln last played an English side in Europe way back in 1976. They met QPR in the UEFA Cup, losing the first leg 3-0 in London. A 4-1 second leg win wasn’t enough as they went out on away goals.

The Germans did face Spurs in the 1995 Intertoto Cup and inflicted the heaviest defeat in Tottenham’s history. Koln won 8-0 against a Spurs side mostly made up of youngsters and loanees. One of those loanees? Alan Pardew! He never played again for Spurs…

The Germans Are Coming!

This is the 7th year in a row that Arsenal will face German opposition in Europe. We’ve faced Bayern Munich (4 times), Borussia Dortmund (3 times) and Schalke (once) since 2011-12.

In the Wenger era, Arsenal have played 30 matches against German clubs in Champions League/UEFA Cup. The Gunners have won 13, drawn 5 and lost 12.

Eight of the twelve defeats have come in the last five seasons. The first of those was a 2-0 loss at the Emirates against Schalke. That result marked the first time a foreign team had won at the Emirates.

Werder Bremen were the first German team that Arsene Wenger faced as Arsenal boss. It came in the quarter-final of the UEFA Cup in 2000. Arsenal won the first leg 2-0 at Highbury.

It won’t come as a surprise to know that we’ve faced Bayern Munich more than any other German team. Arsenal have played Bayern 12 times since 2000, winning just three of them. The first win over Bayern came in the 2004-05 quarter-final second leg. Arsenal won 1-0 at Highbury, but went out 3-2 on aggregate.

Our biggest win over a German side came against Bayer Leverkusen in 2002. Arsenal won 4-1 at home in the Champions League second group stage. A 21-year old Dimitar Berbatov made a substitute appearance in the game.

The most recent win over a German side was the 2-0 group stage victory over Bayern Munich in 2015. It was a crucial win for the Gunners, having lost the opening two group matches. Olivier Giroud and Mesut Ozil got the goals.

Not to be downer by drawing attention to one of our defeats, but this 2-1 loss to Dortmund in 2002 is interesting. Tomas Rosicky contributed to both Dortmund goals, four years before he joined Arsenal. What’s more, the goalkeeper for Dortmund that day was Jens Lehmann. He joined Arsenal the following summer.

AHA!

There’s one man who will undoubtedly be glued to the match this evening. Lukas Podolski joined FC Koln as a 10-year old and spent over 10 years at the club in his first spell. He made his debut in November 2003 and went on to score 10 goals in his first 19 matches – which was the best tally for an 18-year old in the Bundesliga.

Koln were relegated in Podolski’s first season as a senior player but he stayed with them and helped the club gain promotion back to the top flight in 2004-05. Podolski remained a loyal Koln player despite his progress into the German national team.

Unfortunately, Koln were relegated again in 2006. That summer several clubs showed their interest in signing Podolski. Bayern Munich won the race for his signature and the forward spent three years in Bavaria. It wasn’t a great time for Podolski at Bayern and when he failed to nail down a regular starting position, he returned to Koln in 2009.

Podolski spent another three years at Koln, scoring 18 goals in his final season with the club. In April 2012, Arsenal announced that they had reached a deal to sign Podolski in the summer. Out of respect for his loyalty and achievements for the club, Koln chose to retire his number 10 shirt as long as he is an active player. However, they started assigning the number 10 shirt again in 2014.

Lukas Podolski spent three years at Arsenal. His first appearance in an Arsenal shirt was in a pre-season friendly against Koln in Germany. He scored twice in a 4-0 win.

In total, Podolski scored 31 goals for Arsenal. Some important goals, some absolute belters – he certainly left some memories in his all too brief time as an Arsenal player. He left for Galatasaray in 2015 and currently plays for Vissel Kobe in Japan. He’s already tweeted about the Arsenal/Koln match: “A perfect match tonight, which I wish I could have played! But only if they let me play 45 minutes for each team!” There’s no doubt both Arsenal and Koln hold a special place in the career of Lukas Podolski.

And that’s that…

So the time has come. We kick off our Europa League campaign against FC Koln tonight. The match starts at 8:05pm (UK time) this evening. We can expect some rotation but should still expect a win. Koln haven’t made a good start to their Bundesliga season and have yet to win in five games in England. Hopefully we can get through it with a victory and go into the Chelsea game on a high.

I’ll be back in a couple of days to preview that game with Chelsea

Thanks for reading!