The 3rd qualifying round has completely finished today, with some interesting results. Here is a run through of the most interesting matches and aggregate totals. For your reference, the country in parenthesis is where the club originates from.
Maccabi Haifa (Israel) 4-3 against Aktobe (Kazakhstan). The first match ended scoreless in Kazakhstan, and the match in Israel was a defense's worst nightmare, with an astonishing seven goals scored in a 54 minute stretch of the 90 minute game. Maccabi are perhaps somewhat dissapointed, having dismantled Northern Irish club Glentoran 10-0 on aggregate in the previous round. Still, a win is a win, and the advantages of advancing are not minor, as I shall explain in a different post focused on the importance of the CL.
Celtic (Scotland) 2-1 against Dynamo Moscow (Russia, obviously). Dynamo managed a 1-0 win at Celtic, but Celtic managed a 2-0 win in Moscow. This came as a bit of a shock seeing as Celtic hadn't won in European club competitions outside of Scotland in 6 years. In fact, it took an almost last minute goal by Georgios Samaras to hand Celtic the aggregate win. Still, Celtic are no doubt thrilled.
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), last year's winners of the Euefa Cup (which has been restructured and renamed the Europa League) lost due to the away goals rule against Timișoara (Romania). The second match ended scoreless in Romania after the 2-2 draw in Ukraine. Still, Shakthar's consolation (like all the other losing clubs from this round) is that they get to play in the Europa League Group Stage, which include 12 groups of 4 teams each, with the top 2 in each group advancing.
Honorable mention must be given to Slovene club Maribor, who stunned Zurich (Switzerland) 3-2 in Zurich; unfortunately (and oddly) for them, everything fell for them at home, where they lost 3-0, enabling Zurich to continue in the CL.
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