Rabotnicki raise the roof

FK Rabotnicki earned a famous European victory as they overcame Hungarian champions Debreceni VSC to secure a UEFA Champions League third qualifying round tie against LOSC Lille Métropole.

Tremendous result
On a major national holiday in F.Y.R. Macedonia, the club produced perhaps the finest result in their history despite making a shaky start. Igor Bogdanović had already shot wide for Debrecen when Ibrahim Sidibe opened the scoring for the visitors with a close-range header after 20 minutes. Within a minute the hosts were on level terms with Nderim Nedzipi beating Norbert Csernyánszki with a 30-metre strike. That levelled the tie at 2-2 on aggregate but Rabotnicki were ahead after 34 minutes as Stojance Ignatov picking out Ivan Pejčić who beat Csernyánszki again.

Red card
Brazilian Carlos Abrilio then hit the crossbar for Rabotnicki before a fine counterattack saw Ignatov feed Pejčić once more. This time he passed for Vanco Trajcev to make it 3-1, and with Péter Halmosi being shown a second yellow card before the interval, Debrecen's hopes of progressing collapsed. Sidibe was then dismissed early in the second half for a dangerous challenge and, against nine men, Rabotnicki always looked comfortable. Carlos Abrilio duly scored a fourth goal to send his side to within one round of the UEFA Champions League group stage.