There’s Champions League qualifying action in Bucharest on Wednesday as FCSB try to overturn a 1-0 deficit in the second leg of their second qualifying round tie against KF Shkendija.
The North Macedonians caused an upset last week, with midfielder Adamu Ibrahim Alhassan scoring the only goal in Skopje. It was a feisty affair, with both sides ultimately reduced to 10 players after Kamer Qaka and Florin Tanase were shown red cards in separate incidents.
FCSB will still be the favourites to progress on Wednesday, but they’ve given themselves some work to do again, having struggled to see off minnows Inter Club d’Escaldes of Andorra in the last round. They only won that tie 4-3 on aggregate, and they’ve also made an unconvincing start to the new Romanian SuperLiga season, losing 2-1 at home to Farul on Saturday.
That will all offer hope to Shkendija who have never previously qualified for the group or league phase of a European competition. They’ve a great chance of changing that this season, having seen off The New Saints 2-1 on aggregate to set up this tie.
These clubs had not met prior to Shkendija’s 1-0 victory in the first leg. The North Macedonians had only taken on Romanian opposition on one occasion prior to that when they were also 1-0 winners against Botosani in a Europa League qualifier in the 2020/21 campaign.
FCSB’s Tanase will miss the second leg due to suspension. The Romanians are also missing Joyskim Dawa, Daniel Birligea and Denis Alibec to injuries.
The visitors will be without Qaka after his first-leg red card, but they’ll likely look to limit the changes apart from that after a strong display.
FCSB: Tarnovanu, Radunovic, Popescu, Ngezana, Cretu, Chiriches, Sut, Olaru, Stoian, Cisotti, Miculescu.
Shkendija: Gaye, Webster, Cake, Fetai, Trumci, Alhassan, Ramadani, Krstevski, Krasniqi, Tamba, Ibraimi.
