Lithuania’s FBK Kaunas will play last season’s UEFA Cup runners-up Rangers in the Champions League second qualifying round after beating Santa Coloma of Andorra on Tuesday.
Kaunas, who named Portuguese Jose Couceiro as coach last week, triumphed 7-2 on aggregate after winning 3-1 at home in the first qualifying round, second-leg tie having romped to a 4-1 victory in last week’s first game.
Baltic rivals Ventspils of Latvia are also through after overhauling a 1-0 first leg deficit to beat Welsh champions Llanelli 4-1 on aggregate.
Forward Vits Rimkus scored twice in a 4-0 home win to seal a trip to Norway’s Brann Bergen next week when the first legs take place in the already-drawn second qualifying round.
Moldovans Sheriff were also big winners at home, overpowering Kazakhstan champions Aktobe 4-0 to secure a 4-1 aggregate victory and a meeting with second qualifying round entrants Sparta Prague.
Azerbaijan’s FC Baku drew 1-1 at Macedonian side Rabotnicki to progress on away goals following last week’s goalless draw and will now play Serbian champions Partizan Belgrade.
Dinamo Tbilisi suffered a 1-0 defeat to Runavik in the Faroe Islands but the Georgians progressed 3-1 overall and travel to Greece’s Panathinaikos next week.
The remaining nine first qualifying round second legs took place yesterday.
Past Champions League winners FC Barcelona, Juventus and Liverpool find out next week who they must beat in a qualifying round to reach this year’s group stage.
UEFA will hold an Aug. 1 draw for the third and final qualifying round that will decide which 16 teams join the 16 elite clubs already entered into the lucrative competition.
Five-time champions Liverpool and 2006 finalists Arsenal join the draw knowing that each of the four English clubs in the group stage last season earned at least 16 million euros (US$25 million) in appearance money and a share of television rights deals. Additional prize money is given for winning and drawing matches.
Juventus return to the competition after a two-year absence because of a bribery scandal and are also hoping for a share of the millions at stake.
Losers in the third qualifying round are entered into the UEFA Cup, where last season’s winners Zenit St Petersburg earned less than 5 million euros.
The draw is held before the second qualifying round finishes on Aug. 6.
The third qualifying round is played Aug. 12 and Aug. 27.
The draw for the UEFA Cup second qualifying round also takes place at Nyon, Switzerland, on Aug. 1.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later