It can't get much more embarrassing than this for Barcelona.
The Spanish powerhouse slumped to a 1-1 draw at provincial Slovakian club SKM Puchov 1-1 in Wednesday's first round, first leg of the UEFA Cup as Milan Jambor scored the equalizer in second-half injury time.
PHOTO: AP
Expected to be a classic mismatch, it was Barcelona at times that looked over its head on the first night of Europe's No. 2 club competition.
Puchov, a tiny club in the industrial northwest of Slovakia, has a budget of only US$1 million, pocket change at Barcelona. The site of the match was moved from Puchov's 6,600-seat stadium to an 18,000 sellout in the nearby town of Trnava.
Patrick Kluivert gave Barca a 1-0 lead in the 49th.
Barcelona was outplayed by Puchov for long periods and only momentary lapses by the Slovaks allowed Barca to escape with a draw.
"Drawing with Barcelona is a fantastic feeling," said Puchov coach Stefan Zatko. "It was a deserved result. I just hope we didn't enrage them too much and they won't tear us apart in the second leg."
"I'm on cloud nine," he added.
Barca coach Frank Rijkaard admitted the obvious: "We made a fatal error in the final seconds of the match. We didn't play as a team. Puchov did."
In other matches involving some of the favorites on a night with almost four dozen games.
At Ljubljana, Slovenia, Michael Owen scored in the 78th to give the English side Liverpool a 1-1 draw against Olimpija. Anton Zlogar gave the Slovenians a 1-0 lead in the 66th.
At Solna, Sweden, Ricardo Oliveira scored the valuable away goal as Spain's Valencia defeated AIK 1-0.
At Newcastle, England, Craig Bellamy scored two with Titus Bramble, Alan Shearer and Darren Ambrose adding the others in a 5-0 victory over Dutch side NAC Breda.
At Rome, Greek defender Traianos Dellas, 20-year-old midfielder Daniele De Rossi, newly signed Norwegian international John Carew and Marco Delvecchio each scored as AS Roma easily defeated Vardar Skopje of Macedonia 4-0.
At Vienna, Austria, Borussia Dortmund overcame FK Vienna 2-1. Lars Ricken got the winner for the Germans in the 67th. Otto Addo scored in the 38th for the Germans with Vladimir Janocko equalizing in the 39th.
At Charleroi, Belgium, lowly La Louviere held Portugal's Benfica to a 1-1 draw. Peter Odemwingie scored for La Louviere in the 16th with Simao equalizing in the 53rd minute.
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