Metalurg suffered a heavy 3:0 defeat to Omonia today and it seems likely that their Euro campaign will come to an end.

Metalurg visited Omonia in the third qualifying round of UEFA Europa League hoping for a positive result before the second leg in Skopje. However, they played a rather poor match in which the hosts had no problems controlling the match.

Omonia scored two goals in the opening 15 minutes and put the match beyond doubt. In the 9th minute, Fofana sent a great cross from the right side, the ball evaded Metalurg’s defense and reached Cristovão who had no problems putting the ball behind Efremov’s back and into the net. Cristovão had a great match, scoring one more goal in the second half and setting up the second goal 6 minutes after his first. Once again the movement was on the right side, this time Cristovão assisted and Poté scored.

To illustrate Metalurg’s inferiority on this match we can use UEFA.com’s stats which shows that Metalurg had no shots on target during the match. Efremov made a couple of saves before man of the match Cristovão headed a ball home in the 57th minute after a great cross by Lobzhanidze.

Metalurg now has a mission impossible before the second leg, but nevertheless managed to reach the third qualifying round with a really changed squad compared to last season’s and reduced budget for the upcoming.

(Match highlights)

GSP Stadium in Nicosia
 Omonia – Metalurg  3:0 (2:0)
Goalscorers: 9′, 57′ Cristovão, 15 Poté
Omonia: Moreira; Lobzhanidze, Stepanov, Acquistapace, Rodri, Cristovão, Nuno Assis (59′ Grigalashvili), Serginho (72′ Fylaktou), Roberto, Fofana (64′ Alex Rubio), Poté.
Metalurg: Efremov; Ristovski (58′ Naumoski), Gjorgievski, Leskaroski, Dalcheski, Mitrev (65′ Tanturovski), Krstev, Radeski, Angelov (29′ Dodevski), Stojanovski, Simonovski
Referee: Gediminas Mažeika (Lithuania)
Yellow cards: Fylaktou (O), Naumoski, Krstev (M)
Red cards: /