Partizan defend 4-0 lead in Luxembourg, two left home
Partizan play the second leg against UNA Strassen on Thursday at 20.15, with Sasa Ilic taking 24 players and leaving Ze and Milan Vukotic in Belgrade after knocks picked up at Macva.
- The second leg of the Conference League second qualifying round is on Thursday, July 30, at 20.15 in Luxembourg.
- Partizan won the first leg in Belgrade 4-0 on July 23.
- Sasa Ilic named 24 players for the trip, 21 outfield and three goalkeepers.
- Ze and Milan Vukotic stayed behind after taking knocks at Macva in Sabac.
Late in the game at Sabac, with Partizan already 3-1 up and the match drifting towards its end, Milan Vukotic went down after a heavy challenge from a home player. In the same match Ze took a blow to the knee. Neither stoppage looked like a talking point for the week ahead, and a few days later both names were missing from the travel list.
Partizan visit UNA Strassen on Thursday at 20.15 in the return leg of the Conference League second qualifying round. Sasa Ilic took 24 players to Luxembourg, 21 outfield men and three goalkeepers. Neither injury is regarded as serious, so Ze and Vukotic were held back in Belgrade as a precaution rather than because something has actually torn.
That game at Sabac was the league opener for the black and whites, and it ended 3-1, a result we covered when both Red Star and Partizan started the Superliga with three points. The bill for that opener arrived just before the European fixture, which is how July tends to go at Humska.
How safe is a 4-0 lead, really?
About as safe as a lead gets. Partizan won the first leg in Belgrade 4-0 on July 23, so the hosts in Luxembourg would now need five goals without conceding. The question worth asking is not who goes through, but what Ilic wants out of 90 minutes that carry so little.
A squad of 24 with three goalkeepers on the plane leaves plenty of room to rotate. A coach who kept two men at home over knocks that are not serious is clearly not planning to gamble with the rest either, and a calendar that alternates between league games and qualifiers every few days forces minutes to be shared out. Anyone from the second tier of the squad who wants a place in the third round has Thursday night to make the case.
The stand that cost 521,625 euros
The first leg was played in front of a reduced crowd. The eastern stand was fully closed under a UEFA sanction, cutting the capacity at Humska by 10,000 seats.
Ahead of that game the club published a statement laying out the numbers itself. Over the past five seasons Partizan has paid around 521,625 euros in fines over supporter behaviour, and more than 1.5 million euros over the past ten years. Closed sections, matches behind closed doors and bans on away ticket sales came with them.
For a club that counts every euro each summer, those are sums measured in transfer fees rather than disciplinary rulings. In that narrow sense the trip to Luxembourg is a break, because Thursday is played without the home section that UEFA has been watching.
Who is waiting in the third round
The winner of this tie meets whoever comes through between Tobol and Panevezys. That pairing is only half settled after the first leg, 1-1, so Partizan will not know where they might be flying in August until Thursday evening.
For the black and whites that is a logistics problem as much as a sporting one. A side that has already lost two players in a single league match now runs into a sequence of fixtures where the line-up will depend on how quickly the injured pair recover.
Everything else is known. The lead is there, the squad is there, and the only realistic way this tie becomes a story is if someone else gets hurt in Luxembourg. The first answer arrives on Thursday at 20.15.
