Europa League, first-round qualifier second leg: Derry City 1 (Chapman 47) CSKA Sofia 2 (Pittas 74, Brahimi 104) \u2013 CSKA win 5-3 on aggregate<\/p>\n
Derry City<\/a> were dumped out of the Uefa Europa League<\/a> at the first hurdle after a second defeat to CSKA Sofia as the return tie at the Brandywell was overshadowed by trouble in the stands.<\/p>\n Hundreds of Derry fans were forced on to the pitch after visiting CSKA fans threw missiles towards them in the Southend Park stand.<\/p>\n The match was delayed for almost 15 minutes after Ellis Chapman drew Derry level with his first goal for the club two minutes into the second half as officials and stewards diffused the situation.<\/p>\n The PSNI entered the stadium behind the stand but thankfully weren\u2019t needed.<\/p>\n When play resumed, Cyprus international Ioannis Pittas, who scored a brace in the first-leg meeting, put the visitors back ahead when he lobbed over Brian Maher following a defensive mix-up.<\/p>\n Seventeen minutes of added time were signalled at the end, and despite a spirited effort from the Candystripes, French winger Mohamed Brahimi finished the tie with a close range finish to earn CSKA a 2-1 win.<\/p>\n The Bulgarians advance to the second round while Derry drop into the Uefa Conference League, where Croatian side HNK Rijeka await.<\/p>\n Tiernan Lynch made three changes as Adam O\u2019Reilly returned from suspension, Kevin dos Santos and Brandon Fleming also coming in. Derry\u2019s goalscorer in Sofia, Liam Boyce missed out, while Cameron Dummigan and Rob Slevin dropped to the bench.<\/p>\n The Bulgarians were without their Belarusian duo, goalkeeper Fedor Lapoukhov and midfielder Max Ebong, who were denied visas to travel.<\/p>\n Dos Santos was Derry\u2019s best outlet on the right and when Fleming sent him scampering clear, the Portuguese winger skipped past Jordao and Pastor before crossing dangerously into the CSKA six-yard box on 12 minutes. O\u2019Reilly had made a lung-bursting run into space but couldn\u2019t get the vital touch and the ball bounced clear.<\/p>\n After an enforced change at the break, Nick Twisk coming in for the injured Dos Santos, Derry hit the front two minutes after the restart. Michael Duffy\u2019s free kick floated to the back post where Fleming headed across goal and Chapman nodded in to the back of the net, pulling them level 3-3 on aggregate.<\/p>\n After the stoppage due to the disturbance in the stands, it was the visitors who were sharpest. Angelo Martino\u2019s half volley bounced across goal but just wide of the far post. However, a minute later, Pittas got on to the end of a long ball to best Maher. <\/p>\n Derry looked to fight back and had the visitors penned in for a lengthy period but within a minute of coming off the bench Brahimi ensured CSKA\u2019s passage into the next round, firing to the net from close range.<\/p>\n DERRY CITY:<\/b> Maher; Barr, Grogan (Stott 90), P. McClean, Fleming; Cotter, O\u2019Reilly, Olayinka (Dummigan 90), Chapman (Clarke 80), Dos Santos (Twisk 45); Duffy.<\/p>\n CSKA SOFIA:<\/b> Evtimov; Pastor, Jordao, Sensi, Godoy (Zwarts 72), Ivanov, Martino, Pittas (Brahimi 103), Panayotov (Eto\u2019o 72), Rodriguez, Solet (Gbamin 79).<\/p>\n Referee: <\/b>J Sabotic (Lux).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europa League, first-round qualifier second leg: Derry City 1 (Chapman 47) CSKA Sofia 2 (Pittas 74, Brahimi 104)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,28978,42433,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,4334,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-589755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-derry-city","tag-europa-league","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-match-report","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116933076317492163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}