Stalemate between Cliftonville and Debrecen
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
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Cliftonville FC 0-0 Debreceni VSC
The hosts went close through Chris Curran and Joe Gormley, while Ibrahim Sidibe hit the bar for Debrecen in the first leg in Belfast.
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Cliftonville FC and Debreceni VSC shared a goalless draw in the opening leg of their UEFA Champions League second qualifying round tie.
Northern Irish champions Cliftonville were knocked out by Celtic FC at this stage last season, but had chances to make a winning start to their 2014/15 campaign at Solitude. The best of those opportunities fell to Chris Curran and Joe Gormley, but visiting goalkeeper Nenad Novaković was up to the task to leave things evenly balanced ahead of next week's second instalment in Hungary.
Having survived those early openings for Curran and Gormley, Debrecen went on to have the better of the first half, Aleksandar Jovanović, Ádám Bódi and József Varga all threatening Conor Devlin's goal with headers.
Ibrahim Sidibe struck the bar early in the second half as Debrecen continued to enjoy superior possession, but Curran spurned another fine chance late on when he fired straight at Novaković. There was still time for Devlin to thwart Selim Bouadla to ensure honours were shared ahead of next week's return.
