A stoppage-time equaliser from Cyriel Dessers secured a 1-1 first-leg draw for Rangers in their Champions League third-round qualifier against Dynamo Kyiv in Poland.
The Scottish Premiership side were trailing to a 37th-minute goal from the Kyiv captain and former West Ham winger Andriy Yarmolenko. But Dessers popped up in the final seconds of four added minutes to convert a cross from the substitute Vaclav Cerny with the last kick of the game.
Rangers will play Kyiv at Hampden Park next week – Scotland’s national stadium will be used due to a delayed refurbishment to one of the Ibrox stands – where victory will take them through to the playoff, where RB Salzburg or Twente lie in wait.
The Rangers manager, Philippe Clement, told BBC Scotland: “We kept on pushing to the end to get the result and I am happy about that because we want this mentality, to keep on working, to keep on going, keep believing.
“We have several new players now, we have young players and they did it. Vaclav Cerny with the very important assist and Cyriel also, kept on pushing to get a goal because he had a few chances which he finished really well and the goalkeeper saved really well. He kept on believing and I am happy for him that he scored the goal.”
A VAR official who worked at the 2023 Champions League final was dropped from by Uefa before the match after reportedly being detained while drunk with a match colleague the night before. Polish media said Bartosz Frankowski and his VAR assistant Tomasz Musial were stopped by police in the early hours of Tuesday carrying a street sign in Lublin, Poland.
They had been due to work at the Dynamo Kyiv-Rangers game. Dynamo hosted the game in Poland because Ukrainian teams cannot play international games at home. Uefa confirmed it replaced the two VAR officials without giving details. The Polish football federation has referred reports of “inappropriate conduct” to its disciplinary body.
The Welsh club The New Saints were edged out 1-0 by the Moldovan side Petrocub in the first leg of their Europa League qualifier.
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Saints, who entered at the third-round stage having exited the Champions League with defeat by Ferencvaros, fell behind in Chisinau after 20 minutes. Donalio Douanla’s strike took a huge deflection off Danny Davies as it flew past the goalkeeper Connor Roberts. Ben Clark went closest to equalising when he curled a shot narrowly wide.
Source: theguardian.com
