Northern Irish Champions Larne FC fell to HJK Helsinki 1-2 at Solitude in the second leg of the Champions League First Qualifying Round. The aggregate score of 1-3 means that the Finns will progress to the next round, while Larne’s European journey will continue in the Conference League.
Hopes were high for the Northern Irish team in their home debut in the Champions League. The away performance, a 1-0 defeat to a shaky looking Helsinki side sparked hope of progression to the second round.
Compounding that hope was the fact that the Finns had a different manager at Solitude than in Helsinki, with Toni Koskela having been dismissed following the win against Larne. He was replaced by assistant coach Toni Korkeakunnas.
The match started brightly enough for the Inver Reds, with Dylan Sloan’s cross nearly finding Lee Bonis’ open head with just twelve minutes played. HJK got into the game more, as the match progressed, though, and were bearing down on the home side for the last fifteen of the first.
That pressure finally brought the card tower down in the 43rd minute, with Lucas Lingman’s short pass finding Santeri Hostikka near the penalty spot, who expertly finished the ball into the bottom corner, giving the Finns a 2-0 aggregate lead.
The second half continued as the first had ended, Larne played hard, but HJK’s pressure was too much. In the 67th minute, Aaron Donnelly clipped Pyry Soiri from behind resulting in a second yellow card with Larne down to ten men.
Larne’s Champions League journey for this year came to an unfortunate end, with HJK’s Bojan Radulovic finishing the debutants with a 91st minute penalty, to send the Finns through on aggregate.
HJK certainly put in a much better showing than they had in Helsinki, and one can only wonder how the manager change may have affected that.
Larne manager Tiernan Lynch didn’t hide his disappointment with the result.
“We had the chance to go through here tonight at home, against obviously a good side, but that’s how it is in Europe. You have to come ready to play in every game. Today we weren’t on our best game, our opponents played better, and we were punished.”
Larne are set to face strong Bulgarian champion Ludogorets Razgrad in the Conference League second qualifying round. Larne must win three ties in a row to qualify for European football.
“Obviously Ludogorets will be another extremely difficult side, they beat Helsinki and Rome in the Europa League last season, but that’s the game. There are no easy opponents in European football. Hopefully we can learn from tonight and challenge Ludogorets in two weeks time,” Lynch commented.
HJK’s European journey will continue with Norwegian champions Molde FK.
Elsewhere in the Conference League, Crusaders went through against Finnish side Haka FC on penalties after a full-time score of 1-1; Linfield progressed against Albanian side Vllaznia after a 0-0 draw; and Glentoran defeated Maltese Griza United 2-1.