The Europa League champions Atletico Madrid will start their campaign against Hapoel Tel Aviv at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Hapoel will still be a clear underdog against last season's Europa League champion, but coach Diego Simeone's decision to leave Falcao, captain Gabi, Arda Turan, Diego Godin and Filipe Luis in Spain, means Tel Aviv has been handed a glimmer of hope to record a massive upset at Bloomfield.

Shirazi returned to the Hapoel bench for Saturday's 2-0 Premier League win over Bnei Yehuda for the first time since undergoing serious head surgery just over two weeks ago and he will be back to full capacity on Thursday.

"Hapoel is always optimistic ahead of its European matches and that has nothing to do with Simeone's decision to rotate his squad for this match," said Shirazi in his first press conference since his health scare.

"I'd rather Falcao didn't play, but they have so many good players and we need to respect all of them. However, we should not fear them."

For the defending champions, Atletico, mixed reports are coming out of the spanish outfits camp, with manager Simeone undecided whether to field goalscoring-machine Radamel Falcao.

Watch Atletico Madrid vs. Hapoel Tel Aviv, click here.

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