It was a difficult week for The New Saints and Caernarfon Town, with both teams losing heavily in the first leg of the European second qualifying round.
The New Saints lost 5-0 in Budapest against Hungarian champions Ferencváros on Tuesday night, before Caernarfon travelled to Poland and lost 6-0 against Legia Warszaw on Thursday night.
The New Saints (0) v (5) Ferencváros | Tuesday, 30 July – 19:00
(Park Hall, Oswestry – Second Leg of Champions League Second Qualifying Round 2024/25)
Following their 4-1 aggregate victory over Montenegrin champions, FK Dečić, The New Saints travelled to Budapest full of confidence, but the Welsh champions soon learned that they were facing opponents of higher level.
Budapest’s Ferencváros are the most successful club in all of Hungary’s history with 35 championships to their name, winning six of those on the bounce since 2018.
The squad is full of international players and the Hungarians are clear favourites after reaching the last 16 of the Europa League last season where they lost to Bayer Leverkusen after finishing top of a group that included Trabzonspor, Monaco and Red Star Belgrade.
It took less than a quarter of an hour for Ferencváros winger Adama Traoré to put the home team ahead on Tuesday night, and five minutes later, the man with 59 caps for the Mali international team had netted for the second time.
It was three before the break thanks to Norway’s Kristoffer Zachariassen, before Adama Traoré completed his hat-trick early in the second half.
Brazilian, Marquinhos scored the fifth from the spot which leaves the Saints with a huge task in the second leg at Park Hall.
Craig Harrison will take some positives that his team created a few promising flashes, with Jordan Williams hitting the crossbar from distance, and Declan McManus missing a golden opportunity late in the game.
But it looks likely that Ferencváros will advance, and that the Saints will drop into the third qualifying round of the Europa League, and even if they lost that tie, then there would be another round to play in the UEFA Conference play-off round.
Since 1996 the New Saints have played 81 games in Europe winning 18 of those (22%), and in 41 European rounds the club has progressed on 10 occasions (24%).
Their best run came in the 2010/11 season – despite winning only one round that year (against Bohemians in the second qualifying round of the Champions League), before losing against Anderlecht, the Saints then had a play-off round to reach the Europa League group stages.
But after losing 5-2 over two legs against CSKA Sofia, the Saints continue to dream of reaching the promise land of the group stages.
The winners of this round will face either UE Santa Coloma (Andorra) or FC Midtjylland (Denmark) in the third qualifying round, while the losers will drop into the Europa League to play either APOEL (Cyprus) or FC Petrocub Hîncești (Moldova).
Caernarfon Town (0) v (6) Legia Warszaw | Thursday, 1 August – 18:00
(Nantporth, Bangor – Second Leg of UEFA Conference League Second Qualifying Round 2024/25)
After qualifying for Europe for the first time in their history, it looks that the dream is coming to an end for Caernarfon Town.
It was an unforgettable victory against Crusaders from Belfast in the first qualifying round, but a club of the calibre of Legia Warszaw was always going to be tough opponents for the Cofis.
Legia Warszaw are the most successful club in all of Poland’s history, and their crowd are known for being passionate and fiery.
The club from the capital of Poland have played over 250 games in Europe reaching the group stage on seven occasions since 2011, and beating teams such as Aston Villa, Leicester City, Sporting Lisbon and Celtic recently.
However, Caernarfon Town started strongly on Thursday night in the empty Stadion Wojska Polskiego, with the crowd banned from the game due to recent troubles.
And in the opening 20 minutes the Cofis could have taken the lead with Daniel Gosset, Zack Clarke and Darren Thomas all missing the target with efforts from promising positions.
The opening goal for Legia came from a corner kick after 22 minutes with the Spaniard, Marc Gual squeezing a header past the goalkeeper at the far post, and although Stephen McMullan got a hand to the ball, the linesman deemed that the ball had crossed the line.
The Cofis continued the fight but a minute before the break, McMullan failed to deal with a simple cross, and after dropping the ball it fell painfully over the line, and Caernarfon couldn’t believe how they were somehow 2-0 down at the break.
With the Canaries’ heads down, Legia Warszaw took advantage and Marc Gual scored two early goals in the second half to complete his hat-trick.
After missing a spot kick midway through the second half, Slovenian forward Blaž Kramer managed to make amends for his mistake three minutes later and turned gracefully before scoring the fifth for Legia.
But Legia Warszaw saved the best until last, in the final seconds of the game as Claude Gonçalves curled a magnificent shot from outside the box into the top corner of the net and made it 6-0 in the capital city of Poland.
After the match, Caernarfon manager admitted that the result was probably expected, but he strongly believed that his side’s performance deserved more from the game, and that silly mistakes had been costly.
The winners of this tie will advance to face either Brøndby IF (Denmark) or KF Llapi 1932 (Kosovo) in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League.
