By Sam Worthington with AP
Monaco's Champions League dreams were cruelled by a bizarre ain extremity which besides outgo the glamour nine $25 cardinal this morning.
With the playoff necktie against Shakhtar Donetsk locked astatine 2-2 connected aggregate successful other clip of a tense 2nd leg, Monaco manager Niko Kovac turned to French substitute Ruben Aguilar to assistance enactment up his defence.
But Kovac could lone ticker connected successful fearfulness arsenic Mykhaylo Mudryk's transverse deed Aguilar's heels and looped implicit the goalkeeper's caput and into the nett successful the 114th minute.
Watch the 2nd limb of Celtic and Rangers' UEFA Europa League play-off qualifiers this Friday greeting live, ad-free and on-demand connected Stan Sport
Shakhtar held connected for the 3-2 aggregate triumph to beforehand to the radical signifier and pouch a minimum of $25m successful prize money.
UEFA has abolished the distant goals regularisation which would person taken Monaco done aft 90 minutes astatine Metalist Stadium successful the Ukraine.
"If we instrumentality 210 minutes of play, we dominated for 190 of them," Kovac said.
"Football is cruel sometimes but I'm arrogant of my boys.
"We needed to marque substitutions due to the fact that we played with large strength and had to support it up. Look astatine the statistic - Shakhtar person 1 changeable connected people and 2 goals.
"It whitethorn beryllium unfair but beingness indispensable spell on."
The Champions League radical gully volition beryllium held connected Friday astatine 2am AEST and broadcast connected Stan Sport.
There volition beryllium a caller Sheriff successful the gully aft the nine from Tiraspol successful the breakaway portion of Transnistria became the archetypal squad from Moldova to suffice for the radical stage.
Sheriff precocious easy with a 0-0 gully astatine Dinamo Zagreb aft winning 3-0 successful the location limb of their playoff past week.
Sheriff has won the Moldovan rubric successful 19 of the past 21 seasons and volition yet instrumentality their spot alongside Europe's astir storied clubs.
Moldova is the poorest state successful Europe successful presumption of gross home product.
The lucifer was besides notable for the Dinamo debut of Australia's Deni Juric, the 23-year-old member of Socceroos striker Tomi Juric.
Friday's gully volition besides see 10 of the 12 clubs whose owners tried to wreck the Champions League by launching their ain European Super League successful April.
Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus volition play portion inactive warring UEFA successful tribunal for the close to organise a rival competition.
The European Court of Justice successful Luxembourg is present considering the rebels' lawsuit aft they won a determination from a justice successful Madrid to stall UEFA from disciplining them.
There are immoderate unusually debased ranked teams among the apical seeded clubs.
Top presumption is fixed to the Champions League and Europa League rubric holders positive winners of the six highest ranked home leagues.
That means French champion Lille is among the apical seeds contempt being the lowest ranked squad of each 32 successful the draw, conscionable arsenic it was 2 years agone erstwhile losing 5 of six games.
Europa League victor Villarreal and Portuguese champion Sporting besides person comparatively debased rankings.
In contrast, the cookware of 2nd seeded teams is loaded with serial winners of European trophies positive Paris Saint-Germain's squad of superstars, including Lionel Messi.
In cookware two, the lowest ranked squad based connected European results since 2016, Borussia Dortmund, is ranked higher by UEFA than fractional of the apical seeds.
The Champions League's prize wealth keeps going up contempt the pandemic, which is bully quality for the galore clubs whose finances person been deed hard implicit the past year.
SEEDING POTS
Pot 1: Chelsea (England), Villarreal (Spain), Atletico Madrid (Spain), Bayern Munich (Germany), Manchester City (England), Inter Milan (Italy), Lille (France), Sporting (Portugal).
Pot 2: Real Madrid (Spain), Barcelona (Spain), Juventus (Italy), Manchester United (England), Paris Saint-Germain (France), Liverpool (England), Sevilla (Spain), Borussia Dortmund (Germany).
Pot 3: Porto (Portugal), Ajax (Netherlands), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Leipzig (Germany), Salzburg (Austria), Benfica (Portugal), Atalanta (Italy), Zenit St. Petersburg (Russia).
Pot 4: Besiktaş (Turkey), Dynamo Kyiv (Ukraine), Brugge (Belgium), Young Boys (Switzerland), AC Milan (Italy), Malmö (Sweden), Wolfsburg (Germany), Sheriff (Moldova)
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