Champions League qualifier round-up

Liam Hanna 7 years ago 3.3k
Fabinho celebrates scoring his penalty against Villarreal. UEFA

Villarreal face an uphill struggle to qualify for the Champions League, after they were beaten 2-1 at home to Monaco, while there remains very little to choose between Porto and Roma.

Monaco shock Villarreal

Villarreal got off to the worst possible start, when N'Diaye brought down Lemar in the area inside just two minutes. Fabinho then scored the subsequent penalty, meaning that the 'Yellow Submarine' had a lot of work to do.

The La Liga side did manage to get themselves back into the game, thanks to a header from Alexandre Pato on 36 minutes. However, Bernardo Silva won it for Monaco in the 72nd minute with a fantastic strike, meaning that Villarreal have their work cut out if they want to reach the group stages of the Champions League.

All square between Porto and Roma

There remains very little between the Portuguese and Italian side, but Roma will perhaps be the happier of the two sides given that Porto still have to travel to the Italian capital.

Roma took the lead in the 21st minute thanks to an own-goal from young Porto midfielder Rui Moreira.

However, Porto managed to equalise in the 61st minute from the penalty spot, when Andre Silva cooly converted his spot kick to set up a tasty tie in Rome.

Celtic win seven-goal thriller

Celtic beat Israeli side Hapoel Be'er Sheva 5-2 at Celtic park, largely thanks to heroics from striker Leigh Griffiths. The Scottish side took the lead in the ninth minute with a goal from Tom Rogic. Griffiths then got his first of the night with a header on 39 minutes. It was Griffith's second goal just on the stroke of half-time that would have had Celtic fans purring. The striker curled home a wonderful free-kick to take the Bhoys into half-time with a 3-0 lead.

Despite dominating the first half, Celtic came out of the blocks slowly and conceded two goals in quick succession. Lucio Maranhao and Maor Mlikson both scored on 55 and 57 minutes respectively to pull it back to 3-2.

However, Moussa Dembele and Scott Brown both scored in the latter stages of the game to take Celtic into the second leg with a 5-2 lead.

Fairytale unlikely for Dundalk

It appears that Irish side Dundalk may not be able to pull off a major shock by qualifying for the Champions League. The Irish minnows lost the first leg of their Champions League qualifier 2-0 to Legia Warsaw.

Goals from Nikolic and Prijovic in the 55th and 90th minute mean that Dundalk will have to pull off something special in Poland if they want to qualify for the Champions League.

Advantage Ludogorets

Ludogorets saw off Victoria Plzen 2-0 at home and now have one foot in the group stages of the Champions League. The Bulgarian side beat their Czech counterparts thanks to goals from Cosmin Moti and Virgil Misidjan.

 

Mentioned in the news story

Legia Warszawa
Villarreal
Hapoel Beer Sheva
Ludogorets
Viktoria Plzeň
UCL Qualifying