Although its not quite the serious stuff happening in the UEFA Champions League, the Second Qualifying Round had some tightly fought games and some of the bigger guns struggled to get a stranglehold on their supposed inferior opponents. Linfield FC of the Northern Irish Premier League put up a credible showing against Belarus-an Champions BATE Borisov. The Irish League champions should have made for easy pickings against the side who held Juventus whilst appearing in the Group Stage of the Champions League but Linfield held on and even took the lead in Windsor Park. The final outcome of the game was 1-1 and all advantage will be with BATE, but it leaves questions open on their performance whether they would be able to handle superior opposition. I
In comparison to BATE's shortcomings, Maccabi Haifa and FK Partizan made easy work of Borac and Shkendija respectively earning a four goal deficit against their less illustrious opponents.
Norweigan stalwarts Rosenborg BK achieved the biggest deficit of the round as they put Icelandic champions Breidablik to the sword with a comprehensive 5-0 drubbing in Trondheim. Another Scandinavian derby took place as Swedish giants Malmo FF recorded a solid 2-0 win over HB Torshavn in Sweden. And sticking to Scandinavian sides, Finnish Champions HJK Helsinki defeated Welsh Champions Bangor City 3-0 in Wales to all but secure their progress to the next round.
Here is a look at the other games that took place in this round.
Zestafoni 3-0 Dacia
Dinamo Zagreb 3-0 Neftchi
Skenderbeu 0-2 APOEL
Skonto 0-1 Wisla Krakow
Sturm 2-0 Videoton
Pyunik 0-4 Plezen
Valletta 2-3 Ekranas
Mogren 1-2 Litex
Maribor 2-0 Dudelange
Slovan 2-0 Tobol
Shamrock Rovers 1-0 Flora Tallinn
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