So both Aberdeen and St.Johnstone started their Europa league campaigns last night. St.Johnstone lost the 1st leg of their Europe League qualifier away to Armenian debutants Alashkert FC. A lacklustre display by all accounts. At least Saints have the home leg to hopefully progress on. A defeat away to an Armenian side in a Europa qualifier - not good. Aberdeen drew their 1st leg 1-1 away to Macedonians Shkendija but really should have won. I would hope they would take care of things in the return leg at Pittodrie.
Aberdeen and Inverness play tonight in the next round of qualifiers for the Europa League. St.Johnstone went out against the Armenian side. Great effort Saints . Never mind, at least your youths are great at head tennis as seen on twitter... Inverness CT v FC Astra (Rom) - not easy but here's hoping HNK Rijeka (Cro) v Aberdeen - see above
What a fantastic performance from the sheep last night! 3-0 victory against Rijeka in Croatia. To put it into perspective this is a Croatian team that has qualified for the group stages of the Europa League for the last 3 seasons running and was unbeaten at home in their last 13 matches in European competition. This was against teams such as Stuttgart, Lyon, Sevilla and Feyenoord to name but four so what a fantastic result for Derek McInnes's men. Surely they are all but through to the 3rd qualifying round and will gain Rijeka's seeding which will give them an unseeded team to play against in rd3. This, in turn, should give them the platform to make it to the playoff round and one step away from qualifying for the group stage. Good luck to them. Not so good news for ICT who succumbed to a 1-0 defeat at home to the Romanian team FC Astra. We played them in our Europa league group last season and they're a fairly handy outfit. By all accounts ICT were a little unlucky but lacked penetration up front. An uphill task now for them to proceed any further in the competition.
Dont worry the rangers will be back in Europe in two years and save celtic from embarrassing themselves.