The last second-leg matches of the second qualifying round of the Champions League were played last night, sportal.bg reported.
Eight more teams advanced to the next phase of the qualifiers of the "rich tournament", and after the end of the matches, some good news arrived for Bulgarian football.
It is related to the local European fighter Ludogorets, who very hard defeated the Croatian Rijeka in Razgrad. The first match in Croatia ended in a goalless draw and in the second leg after 1:1 in regular time, it came to extra time, which the "eagles" won with 3:1.
In the next phase of the "rich tournament" The team from Razgrad will face Ferencvaros, who eliminated the Armenian Noah. The "Hungarians" won the first match 2:1, and today in the second leg they won 4:3 and moved on with a total score of 6:4.
In the first match for the draw Qarabag finished what they started a week ago against the Irish Shelburne and won with a minimum score of 1:0. Thus, the Azerbaijanis qualified for the third preliminary round in the "tournament of the rich" with a total score of 4:0.
A similar thing was done by the Swedish Malmö, who recorded another success against RFS from Latvia. In the first match, the Scandinavians had defeated their opponent with a 4:1, and now they won with a minimum score of 1:0. The only goal came in the first half, when Montenegrin Sead Haksabanovic scored, and the Baltics finished the match with a reduced squad after Janis Ikaunieks received a direct red card.
Shkendija slapped a second huge slap on FCSB and humiliated the Romanians in the middle of Bucharest with a 2:1 away win. Thus, the Macedonians qualified for the third preliminary round with an aggregate score of 3:1 and guaranteed themselves participation in the main draw of at least one of the three tournaments under the umbrella of UEFA.
Another match was played near Bulgaria. In Bačka Topola, Serbia, the Israeli Maccabi (Tel Aviv) hosted Paphos from Cyprus due to the military situation in the Middle East. The symbolic hosts were left with a man less in the 30th minute after Ofek Malika's red card. A little later, Xhaja from the islanders scored in the 40th minute. This was the only goal of the match and the Cypriots advanced with a 2:1 aggregate score.
In another match in the Balkans, Rangers fought for a draw: against the Greek giants Panathinaikos, which was enough for the Scots to advance with a 3:1 aggregate score.
Lech (Poznan) was also among the teams that played for the score in the second leg and after 7:1 in the first leg, they took a narrow 1:0 victory in the away match against the Icelandic Breidablik. The only goal in this match was scored by Mikael Ishak in the 29th minute.
RB Salzburg were in a similar situation in their match against Brann (Bergen) after 4:1 in the first match a week ago on the Scandinavian peninsula. However, the Norwegians scored an early goal in the 3rd minute through Emil Kørnvig, but their hopes were soon dashed by Maurits Kjaergaard's goal in the 6th minute. There were no new goals until the end and the Austrians moved on with an aggregate score of 5:2. In the next round, they will meet the Belgian club Bruges.
The last match of the evening had an extremely interesting outcome. In the first match a week ago, Servette defeated Viktoria Plzen by a minimal score of 1:0 and at the beginning of the second leg took the lead after an early goal by Alexis Antunes (4'). However, the Czechs made a complete turnaround and took the lead at the break thanks to goals from Karel Spačil (29') and Matej Vidra (31'). The second half also offered a lot of emotions, as in the space of 180 seconds the rivals lost one game on the field. In the 66th minute, Adrian Želković from Victoria received a direct red card, and in the 69th minute, Ioan Severin from Servette went to the showers early, who was marked for the second time in "yellow". The guests took advantage of the force majeure, who won a penalty three minutes before the end of regular time and Durosinmi (87') made the final score 3:1. Thus, the team from Pilsen moved on and will meet Rangers in the third preliminary round of the most prestigious European club tournament.