THE Slovan Bratislava struggled but beat Swift Esperance 2-0 from Luxembourg and will thus find himself in the 2nd qualifying round of the Champions League where he will face Zrinsky from Bosnia.
A familiar opponent for the Slovaks, having been knocked out on penalties in the Conference League playoffs just last year – with Slovan then reaching the last 16 stage.
However, the two teams have met once more in the past and in fact it was then in the same phase as now – the 2nd qualifying round of the Champions League.
The season 2009/10 so, the Bosnians had won 1-0 in the first match but the defeat, 4-0, in the second leg of Bratislava had sent Slovan to the next stage, specifically to the Olympic!
The “red and white”, coached by Timur Ketspayathey would beat the Slovaks inside out (2-0, 2-0) en route to the Champions League groups, then knocking out Sheriff Tiraspol.
With the said pair marginally in the thick of the draw for the 3rd qualifying round on Monday (24/07), the resemblance to 2009 emerges as can be drawn with AEK!
The Union will go into the draw as underdogs and, frankly, wouldn’t say no to a matchup with these teams – in theory at least, along with Helsinki-Molde and Rakow-Karabakh they look like the ideal pairings to meet in the doubles.
After all, Slovan is often in the way of Greek teams. Only from 2019 onwards, he has played twice with Olympiakos and PAOK, while he had also faced Panathinaikos on the way to the “green” epic of “Wembley” in the 1970/71 season.
Only AEK has not achieved it, in short…
Source: Sport Fm
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