UEFA Champions League Qualifying, 2011: Bayern, Zagreb Lead Advancing Teams

FC Zurich 0-1 Bayern Munich (Bayern Munich advance 3-0 on aggregate)

Beyern were holding a 2-0 lead from their home leg at the Allianz Arena, and ‘Super’ Mario Gomez made it 3-0 on aggregate within ten minutes of the second leg starting. After that, the match was pretty pointless. Zurich needed four goals to get through, and got exactly none of them.

APOEL Nicosia 3-1 Wilsa Krakow (APOEL Nicosia advance 3-2 on aggregate)

It was a boring but closely fought match in the first leg, but nothing of the sort in the second. Nicosia needed to score to advance thanks to a 1-0 reverse in Krakow, but with the threat of an away goal from the their opponents, they probably wanted to win by two. They went up early thanks to an own goal by Sergei Pareiko and then double their advantage thanks to Ailton Jose Almeida strike in the 54th minute, but the visitors pegged back a goal within a quarter of an hour and things looked dire for the Cypriots until Almeida notched again four minutes from time. Close!

Malmo 2-0 Dinamo Zagreb (Dinamo Zagreb advance 4-3 on aggregate)

Well this game was closer than it really ought to have been. Zagreb grabbed a 4-1 win in the reverse fixture, so Malmo had to win 3-0 or by four goals in order to avoid extra time or elimination on away goals. For much of the match, things were scoreless, but Wilton Figueiredo scored in the 69’ minute to make it 1-0 Malmo and Pontus Jansson doubled their lead in the 86th. After a tense finish, however, Zagreb snuck through to advance to the group stages.

Racing Genk 2-1 Maccabi Haifa (Racing Genk advance 4-1 on penalties after 3-3 aggregate draw)

Someone had to go to pelaties, right? After Maccabi Haifi won 2-1 at home last week, Genk repeated the feat in Belgium, forcing a penalty shootout. All of the goals came during a wild six minute period in which Jelle Vossen gave Genk the lead, Eyal Golsa took it back for Maccabi Haifa, then Thomas Buffel tied up the score on aggregate. In the shootout, Genk keeper Laszlo Koteles made two massive saves, helping his team to easily win the shootout 4-1.