Red Star rout Larne 5-0, Hapoel Beer Sheva next
Larne lost 5-0 in Belgrade and 9-0 on aggregate. Arnautovic scored twice, Katai opened inside three minutes, and Red Star locked in a tenth straight European autumn.
The ball was in the Larne net before the third minute was out. Aleksandar Katai scored before the game had settled into any kind of shape, and everything that followed at the Rajko Mitic Stadium was just numbers added to a tie that had been decided a week earlier in Northern Ireland. Red Star Belgrade won the second qualifying round return leg 5-0.
Katai put the ball in again in the 15th minute, with his head, and had it ruled out. It made no difference. Marko Arnautovic made it 2-0 in the third minute of first-half stoppage time, and four minutes after the restart, in the 49th, Loizu punished a Ferguson error that sent the ball straight to his feet.
Arnautovic added his second of the night in the 59th minute, and Osman Bukari finished the scoring in the 79th, about fifteen minutes after coming on.
What the team sheet said
Dejan Stankovic started with Mateus, Seol, Ucena, Veljkovic, Strika, Krunic, Abu Fani, Loizu, Cam, Katai and Arnautovic. Telegraf reports that a 16-year-old was in that starting eleven, which tells you more about how comfortable the coaching staff felt than the scoreline does.
A triple change came in the 64th minute: Bukari for Loizu, Timi Max Elsnik for Krunic, Tiknizjan for Strika. Six minutes later Seol made way for Nikola Stankovic.
The aggregate score is 9-0. In the first leg in Northern Ireland on July 21, Red Star won 4-0 through Bruno Duarte, who converted a penalty in the 26th minute and scored again in the 67th, Vasilije Kostov in the 55th and Muhamed Cam in the 85th. Two matches, nine goals, none conceded.
Going through also means a tenth consecutive European autumn for the Belgrade club. Nobody in Serbia throws a party over that number any more, but it is the reason Red Star enter these rounds as a seeded side rather than as hopefuls, and it is the run the whole budget is built on.
Who are Hapoel Beer Sheva?
The Israeli side reached this tie the hard way. Vikingur of Iceland won the first leg 2-1, but Hapoel Beer Sheva turned it around with a 2-0 win at home. Zahi Ahmed scored in the 65th minute to level the aggregate at 2-2, and Amir Gana settled it in the 80th. Vikingur were awarded a penalty in stoppage time, only for the decision to be reversed after a VAR check.
One detail changes the travel plans for both legs. For security reasons Hapoel do not play their European qualifiers in Israel but on neutral ground in Hungary. Red Star therefore play the away leg in Szombathely on August 4, with the return at the Rajko Mitic Stadium on August 11.
The playoff draw
The playoff round draw takes place at noon on Monday in Nyon. In the champions path, alongside the winner of Red Star against Hapoel, are Dinamo Zagreb or Kauno Zalgiris, Celtic, Slovan Bratislava or Mijalbi, and AEK Athens.
Asked about that draw after the match, Stankovic said Red Star are a serious landmine for whoever draws them.
What two matches against Larne could not test is how this side reacts when an opponent hits back. Nine goals against a team that made an error at the worst possible moment and had little to come off the bench says very little about August 4 in Hungary. Hapoel are a tougher, more organised side, and they arrive off a tie they had to overturn. The first real examination is in five days.
