Tuesday, August 23, 2011

UEFA Champions League Qualifying: Yellow Submarine, APOEL, and Genk Overcome Game-One Defeats To Join Bayern and Dinamo Zagreb In Group Stage

Five two-game series came to a conclusion as the second week of the UEFA Champions League's playoff round commenced.


At Villarreal, Spain:


Giuseppe Rossi scored twice in the second half (50', 66') as Villarreal overturned their 1-0 game-one road defeat of last week with a 3-0 game-two home win over Odense Bollklub and won their series 3-1 on aggregate to advance to the group stage.


At Zurich, Switzerland:


Mario Gomez scored the only goal of the match in the 7th minute as Bayern Munich took game two with FC Zurich 1-0 on the road and the series 4-0 on aggregate.


At Nicosia, Cyprus:


Ailton scored twice in the second half (54', 87') as APOEL FC bounced back from their game-one defeat in Poland to overcome Wisla Krakow 3-1 at home and win their two-game series 3-2 on aggregate and advance to the group stage.


At Malmo, Sweden:


Despite dropping a 2-0 decision on the road to Malmo FF in game two, Dinamo Zagreb still sewed up their first Champions League group-stage appearance in twelve years by winning their two-game series 4-3 on aggregate.


At Genk, Belgium:


With Jelle Vossen (35') and Thomas Buffel providing the first-half tallies that enabled KRC Genk to take game two in regulation 2-1, and deadlock their series with visiting Maccabi Haifa at 3-3 on aggregate and force what turned out to be 30 minutes of scoreless overtime, the Belgian club won the penalty-kick shootout 4-1 to advance to the group stage.  Jelle Vossen, David Hubert, Daniel Tozser, and Daniel Pudil all converted their spot kicks.  Goalkeeper Laszlo Koteles helped his club's cause by saving two spot kicks from the Israeli champs in the PK shootout.


The five clubs eliminated on Tuesday will be playing in the Europa League's group stage.

No comments: