Saturday Action at Intertoto

By: Ian Rose | July 14th, 2007

All but two of the Intertoto Cup second round matches are decided, with the remainder to be played tomorrow. Here are the stories from today’s action:

Irish crash out
Both Cliftonville of Northern Ireland and Cork City of Ireland were eliminated today. Belgian side AA Gent took out Cliftonville without much trouble, 6-0 aggregate. Cork City put up more of a fight, ending up losing to Hammarby by just 2-1.

Penalty drama
Two of today’s ties went down to penalties. Gloria Bistriţa gave up their 2-0 advantage, allowing Maccabi Haifa the same score at the end of extra time. However, the Romanian minnows were able to beat the Israeli side on penalties and move on. In other news relating to teams with strange letters in their names, Dacia Chişinău of Moldova just squeezed by St. Gallen to move on to the next round, and to finally bring to fruition the possibility of a bet between Jan and Bob as Dacia will play Hamburg starting next week.

One big surprise…
After a 2-0 first leg victory, Maribor looked primed to move on, but got a shock today as Hajduk Kula of Serbia rocked them to the tune of 5-0.

… and some less surprising results
The most dominant sides in the first leg continued to beat up on their opponents this week, as Trabzonspor, Rubin Kazan and Cherno More Varna all won their ties without conceding a goal. The beat-down of the round goes once again to the Black Sea Storm of Trabzonspor, who beat Vllaznia 10-0 on aggregate. The Kazan win, along with Rapid Vienna’s cagier 3-2 win over Bratislava, sets up the first all-’Know Your Minnows’ matchup next week between the two teams, who have both been profiled in this blog in the last two weeks.

A draw at home is like a loss
The two remaining ties were draws the first leg, and in both cases, the home advantage won out. Romanian side Oţelul Galaţi managed a 0-0 draw the first leg away at Sarajevo, but took the home leg 3-0 to move on. Honka Espoo and AaB Aalborg played to a 2-2 draw in the opening leg of the Intertoto’s only Scandinavian derby, but as the action returned to Aalborg, the Danes pulled ahead and won on away goals.

Tough opposition ahead
What’s your reward for moving on? You get to face much, much harder opposition. The third round seeds include names like Atlético Madrid, Sampdoria, Hamburg, and Lens. The minnows will have it all to do to advance, but they are now one round away from the UEFA Cup proper, a huge achievement for these relatively small teams. I’ll be back later this week to preview the third round and look at who I think will move on, and who will be headed home before the big show.