Uefa Cup round-up
by Joseph Caron Dawe, 28 August 2008
Aston Villa comfortably cruised into the first round proper of the Uefa Cup on Thursday evening as their 1-1 draw at home with FH Hafnarfjordur secured a 5-2 aggregate victory over the Icelandic outfit, in the second qualifying round.
Craig Gardner turned in Marlon Harewood’s cross just before the half-hour mark, and Brad Friedel’s mistake allowed Atli Vldar Bjornsson to volley in an equaliser, but Martin O’Neill’s side’s result in Hafnarfjordur two weeks earlier saw them through.
It was not quite as easy for Manchester City though, who had to rely on a penalty shootout to get past Danish outfit FC Midtjylland away from home.
After being outdone 1-0 at Eastlands a fortnight ago Mark Hughes’ side laboured in the return leg in Denmark, and only managed to take the game to extra time thanks to a Danny Califf own goal in the 90th minute to make it 1-0 to City on the day.
Joe Hart saved penalties from Jonas Borring and Kolja Afriyie to make amends for Michael Johnson’s miss, and Vedran Corluka sealed a shootout win for the visitors with his effort.
St Patrick’s Athletic saw off Swedish highfliers IF Elfsborg 2-1 at Richmond Park to squeeze through 4-3 on aggregate.
The visitors took the lead just after the hour mark through Stefan Ishizaki and looked to be sending the Irish side crashing out. However, Jason Gavin and Mark Quigley both struck inside the closing four minutes for John McDonnell’s side to deliver victory.
Elsewhere, it was a good night for the Bundesliga sides involved as both Stuttgart and Hertha Berlin progressed thanks to wins on the night. Stuttgart overturned a 2-1 first-leg deficit by beating Hungarian side Gyor 4-1 in their second leg, and Hertha beat IB Ljubljana of Slovenia 1-0 to make it a 3-0 aggregate success.
Deportivo La Coruna beat Hadjuk Split 2-0 on the night after a goalless first leg to make it through, and Rennes reversed their first-leg 2-1 defeat by Stabaek, winning 2-0 to advance by a single goal.
Napoli completed a routing of Albanian minnows Vllaznia Shkoder by winning 5-0 (8-0 on aggregate) and Braga’s 2-0 win over NK Zrinjski of Bosnia-Herzegovina ensured a safe passage too.
Across the rest of the fixtures there were mixed fortunes for the remaining Swedish sides as Allsvenskan league leaders Kalmar disposed of AA Gent while Djurgarden lost out to last season’s Champions League participants Rosenborg as their first-leg advantage was scrubbed out.
APOEL put an end to Crvena Zvezda’s hopes as they won on the away goals rule, while FC Copenhagen saw off Lillestrom. AEK Athens lost out to Omonia Nicosia and Besiktas triumphed over Siroki Brijeg.
Serbian side FK Borac outwitted Lokomotiv Sofia, SC Vaslui of Romania beat SK Liepajas Metalurgs and Hapoel Tel Aviv saw off Vojvodina.
Viking FK of Norway were outdone by FC Honka, and Austria Wien, FC Moscow, Brondby, Litex, Salzburg, Young Boys Bern, Slaven Koprivnica, MSK Zilina, Bellinzona, Cherno More, FC Zurich and Lech Poznan all made it through as well.