As the largest pocket country in Europe, Cypriot football actually has a strong presence in Europe. The leagues of this country have many regular european competitions. In the case of the restructuring of the three major European Cups, three Cypriot teams have entered the group stage of the European war. The country's teams have become a beautiful landscape in European football.
After being eliminated by Israeli teams in the Champions League, the Limassol Helios switched to Europa League qualifying. They meet the Greek magnate Olympiacos. The two legs of regular time matches, the total score of the two sides is 2-2, and in the final penalty shootout, the Greek team wins and finally advances to the group stage.
But the Sun Gods don't have to complain about themselves, they can still play in the group stage of the UEFA League.
Nicosia Omonia swept Ghent in the Bundesliga 4-0 on aggregate. In the match, no player was sent off in Ghent, and the Cyprus team won entirely on its own strength. Homegrown 21-year-old goalscorer Kakuris scored 1 goal and 2 assists in two legs, dominating the two victories.
Ghent was last season's Belgian Cup winner, which gave them a chance to qualify for the Europa League. However, this player with a total value of 63.23 million euros lost without temper when playing against opponents with a total value of 17.25 million euros, which is also a big upset.
Larnaca AEK suffered a small penalty loss to Danish powerhouse Midirant in the Champions League qualifying round. After moving to the Europa League, they eliminated Serbian giants Partizan Belgrade on aggregate 4-3 before moving on to the final qualifying round. Facing Ukrainian side Dnipro, they ruthlessly swept their opponents with an aggregate score of 5-1 and finally reached the group stage of the Europa League.
Another team to compete in the European qualifiers is nicosia Apol, which is what we are familiar with as the Greeks. The team had a mediocre league result last season and they had to play in the UEFA. After winning the first two rounds, they met Zogadons (Jürgarden) from Sweden for the final qualifying round.
In the first match, one person from each side was sent off, and the more skilled Swedish team won 3-0. In the second leg of the match, the back-to-back Greek Athletic blasted 13 shots on target and the team was already 2-0 in the 23 minutes. However, the Swedish team scored in the 69th minute by Elias Anderson to make the aggregate score 4-2.
The Swede's goal almost extinguished the Cypriot team's hopes for an equaliser. However, they scored in the 74th minute, this time by Brazilian goalscorer Maquinhos, who had just joined. In stoppage time, black shooter Asolo scored the second goal of Zogatons, which also completely lost hope for the Greeks. The 23-year-old goalscorer scored six goals in the UEFA qualifiers, a team thigh.
In this regard, Zogatons made a historic promotion to the UEFA group stage, and the Greeks did not qualify.
Despite this, three teams in the Cyprus League made it to the European group stage. Coincidentally, the three teams come from the top three cities in Cyprus in terms of population, namely the capital Nicosia, the second largest city, Limassol, and the third largest city, Larnaca. However, because the population is not large, the population of these three cities is only about 500,000 yuan.