Borac Reaches Conference League Playoff on Penalties
Goalkeeper Mladen Jurkas saved two penalties in Mezokovesd to send Banja Luka's Borac into the Conference League playoff, where Vikingur awaits in Reykjavik on August 20.
Five minutes into stoppage time in the second period of extra time, the ball was in the back of Borac’s net, and the bench in Mezokovesd fell silent. Koncevoj scored in the 125th minute to level the aggregate score at a moment when the team from Banja Luka already had one foot in the Conference League playoff. Everything they had built since the first leg the previous week nearly unraveled in three seconds.
Then an eighteen-year-old goalkeeper took over.
Mladen Jurkas saved two penalties, Borac won the shootout 4-2 and reached the Conference League playoff, the last hurdle before the autumn group stage. The two youngest players on the pitch decided the match: one scored a goal, the other saved two penalties.
How the Tie With Vitebsk Was Decided
The second leg of the third qualifying round was played on Thursday, August 13, in Mezokovesd, Hungary. Belarusian clubs are barred from hosting European matches on their own soil, so Vitebsk moved its home fixture to Hungary, to a stadium that was theirs in name only.
Borac went into the second leg with a 1-0 lead from Banja Luka and opened the match on the front foot, creating two chances through Majers and Hrelja. The punishment came in first-half stoppage time. Kleonis scored in the 45+1st minute, assisted by Volkov, to level the tie.
The second half produced no goals, sending the match to extra time. That is when Matej Deket entered, a sixteen-year-old who had spent the first 90 minutes on the bench. In the 103rd minute, following a cross from Hiros, he found the net against Vitebsk and restored his team’s aggregate lead.
Seventeen minutes plus stoppage time remained. Borac’s defense held for almost the entire spell, then broke in the match’s final attack, when Koncevoj scored to make it 2-1 and send the tie to penalties.
A Shootout Without a Miss From Borac
From the spot, the Banja Luka side was flawless. Vranjes, Hiros, Deket and Erera all converted their penalties. For Vitebsk, Volkov and Koncevoj scored, while Gnaka and Gomanov both missed, saved by Jurkas.
The number that says the most about this tie is this: Deket was the only Borac player to score from open play across both legs, and he did it in extra time of the second leg. The champion of Bosnia and Herzegovina advanced with two goals scored in 210 minutes of football, a return that will not be enough on Iceland.
Who Is Vikingur and How They Reached the Playoff
Vikingur of Reykjavik did not reach this round through the Conference League. The Icelandic side played Europa League qualifiers and lost there to Switzerland’s Thun. They lost the first leg 0-3, then won the return leg 3-2, not enough to advance, but enough to drop down a level and continue in Europe.
That means Borac now faces an opponent that has already shown it can beat a stronger side, but also one that failed to defend a result in Europe this season. A trip to Reykjavik is its own category of test: the pitch, the wind and a crowd that knows what a European night in August looks like.
Playoff Dates
The first playoff leg is set for August 20 in Iceland, with the return leg on August 27 in Banja Luka. The winner of the tie advances to the Conference League group stage, while the losing side sees its European season end.
What Borac showed in Hungary was not quality of play but character. A team that concedes in the 125th minute and still stays composed through a penalty shootout carries something that cannot be drilled on the training ground. But Reykjavik will demand goals from open play too, since a tie against an Icelandic side is unlikely to be settled by a shootout twice in a row. The first answer arrives in six days.
