2024-08-17 09:49:41
The Bulgarian football hegemon for the last 13 years, “Ludogorets”, remained the only Bulgarian representative in European tournaments once again.
The residents of Razgrad were disastrously defeated by the Azerbaijani “Karabakh” on Tuesday with 2:7 at their own stadium, but even before that they had secured at least participation in the groups of the Conference League.
Now the Eagles, who fired their coach Georgi Dermendzhiev after the fiasco in Razgrad and are waiting for a new (temporary Zahari Sirakov)will play a playoff to enter the groups for the second most powerful tournament on the continent – the Europa League. Their opponent will be the Moldovan “Petrocub”, and the first match is next week in Razgrad.
CSKA 1948 parted ways with their European dream in the 2024-2025 season. This happened after the “Reds” lost 0:4 after extra time to “Paphos” in their visit to Cyprus and were eliminated with a total score of 2:5.
The way the match went to overtime was especially painful for the Bulgarian team. The home side were down a man for the entire second half as Steve Furtado was sent off at the end of the first half, and Derrick Lucassen sent the game into extra time in the final seconds with a vital goal for the Cypriots.
There, Valentin Iliev’s players were unable to resist the opponent, who scored two more goals through Dzhaja and Andersson.
Thus, “Paphos” will argue with “Cluj” in the playoff for the League of Conferences. In the last minutes, Reyan Daskalov scored an own goal, which shaped the final result in Limassol.
Certainly, the “reds” can regret extremely much for the development of the entire match, since, although with a man, it was more difficult to see how “Paphos” would score a goal that would equalize the total score. After the long action in the 97th minute of added time, Lucassen transferred the ambition completely to the side of the “blues”, who finished off the Bulgarians after 120 minutes.
Zhrinski Mostar defeated Botev (Plovdiv) 2:0 in the second leg of the third preliminary round of the Conference League. The goals for the hosts were the work of Nardin Mulahuseynovic and Tomislav Kish. Already in the first 25 minutes, the home team could have scored after receiving a questionable penalty, which was saved by “Botev” goalkeeper Hans Christian Bernat. Shortly after, the hosts opened and seconds later Antoine Conte was sent off in controversial circumstances. In the second half, “Zhrinski” imposed its will and managed to score a second goal.