Vardar defeated Danish champions København in the first leg with a lone goal scored by Balotelli.

Vardar’s dream for reaching the Champions League group stage is still active. Today they did their job by winning 1:0 over København in the 3rd qualifying round.

The Macedonian champion dominated the first half, but failed to create a serious threat towars København’s goal. The few chances came from corner or free kicks. The Danish champions were more thinking how to close every way towards their goal than to try and score. They were doing that so good that Vardar players often had no idea how to cross the center field and were forced to play keeper Gachevski.

In the opening minutes after the break København started pressing more and had a great chance in the 52nd mnute but Bentssons’s shot missed the target by millimeters. Vardar woke up and three minutes later Balotelli missed a colossal chance one on one with visiting keeper that ended in a corner kick. This more active play was thanks to the change of the visiting tactics who opten to open their play and attack.

Eventually the deadlock was broken in the 65th minute. It was one of those attacks of Vardar that didn’t promisse anything. This time they found a hole in Køobenhavn’s defence and the ball even somehow deflected to reach Balotelli who scored on a beautifull shot.

The athmosphere at the stadium right after the goal:

After that goal Vardar had a great chance to double the lead, but substitute Kojašević failed to score on a header. København also had couple of great chances to equalize, but luckily Gachevski was in place.

Last two minutes of the game:

Vardar – København 1:0 (0:0)
Goals: 65′ Jonathan Balotelli
Vardar: 90. Gachevski; 23. Demiri, 21. Novak, 6. Grncharov (c), 19. Hambardzumyan; 20. Nikolov (88′ 16. Gligorov), 8. Spirovski; 9. Blazhevski (60′ 10. Kojašević), 70. Juan Felipe, 11. Barseghyan (76′ 77. Brdarovski); 89. Balotelli.