Playoff Round: First Leg Results

By: Dan | August 20th, 2009

I’m currently on vacation and very much out of the regular news loop, although I was able to watch the PSV 4 – Ajax 3 match, and a couple of the Champions League qualifiers on Fox Soccer. At any rate, I have commandeered a laptop and have had a chance to take a look at some interesting results from the first leg games, which included the first batch of Champions League dropouts.

PAOK 1 – Heerenveen 1
Dinamo Zagreb 4 – Hearts 0
Werder Bremen 6 - Aktobe 3
Everton 4 – Sigma Olomouc 0
BATE 0 – Litex Lovech 1
NAC Breda 1 – Villarreal 3
Lech Poznan 1 - Club Brugge 0
Fulham 3 – Amkar Perm 1
Galatasaray 5 – Levadia 0
FK Teplice 1 – Hapoel Tel Aviv 2
Metalurh Donetsk 2 – Austria Vienna 2
FC Twente 3 – Qarabag 1
MFK Kosice 3 – AS Roma 3
CSKA Sofia 0 – Dinamo Moscow 0
Genk 1 – Lille OSC 2
Bnei Yehuda 0 – PSV Eindhoven 1
Lazio 3 – Elfsborg 0
Trabzonspor 1 – Toulouse 3
Partizan Belgrade 1 – MSK Zilina 1
FK Baku 1 – Basel 3
Ajax Amsterdam 5 – Slovan Bratislava 0
Sivasspor 0 – Shakhtar Donetsk 3
Brøndby 2 – Hertha Berlin 1
Athletic Bilbao 3 – Tromsø 2
FK Sarajevo 1 – CFR Cluj 1
Rapid Vienna 1 – Aston Villa 0
Steaua Bucharest 3 - St. Patrick’s 0
NK Maribor 0 – Sparta Prague 2
CD Nacional 4 – Zenit St. Petersburg 3
Genoa 3 – Odense BK 1
Dinamo Bucharest – Slovan Liberec MATCH ABANDONED
Guingamp 1 – Hamburg SV 5
FC Sion 0 – Fenerbahce 2
Sturm Graz 1 – Metalist Kharkiv 1
Slavia Prague 3 – Red Star Belgrade 0
Benfica 4 – Volska Poltava 0
Vaslui 2 – AEK Athens 1
Stabæk 0 – Valencia 3

As in the previous round, there were a couple of surprises to start off with. In the last twenty minutes of their game, Roma went from having a comfortable 3-1 advantage to bring back to Rome to 3-3. Rapid Vienna defeated Aston Villa, which was the standout among a fairly good day by current Austrian standards.

Ajax, Everton, Galatasaray, and Hamburg all coasted to victory in their matches.

Russian football continued to have a bad summer in European competition. Dinamo Moscow’s 0-0 draw with CSKA Sofia was the best of the day’s result. Amkar Perm were beaten by Fulham and former UEFA Cup winners Zenit St. Petersburg were on the wrong side of a 4-3 goal fest against Nacional of Portugal.

On a note of personal annoyance, Hertha proved any of us who were filled with anxiety about Brøndby correct, for now. They will have to overturn a 2-1 deficit in Berlin next week.

For the most part, it seems like this is the point in the competition where many of the charming minnows and mid sized teams that have done well to get to this point are going to bow out.