Robin van Persie and Nani miss out on Champions League
Thursday 6 August 2015 15:05, UK
Robin van Persie and Nani's dreams of Champions League football this season were dashed as Fenerbahce lost 3-0 at Shakhtar Donetsk in their Champions League qualifiers on Wednesday.
Van Persie was missing as goals from Dario Srna, Oleksandr Gladkiy and Alex Teixeira gave Shakhtar a 3-0 aggregate victory after the first leg in Istanbul last week had finished 0-0.
Partizan Belgrade, CSKA Moscow, Astana and Malmo also reached the play-off round; CSKA came from two goals down at Sparta Prague to win 3-2 and qualify 5-4 on aggregate, Russian international Alan Dzagoev scoring the winner.
Astana, having drawn 0-0 in the first leg away to HJK Helsinki, prevailed after a see-saw battle in the return, Evgeniy Postnikov scoring a stoppage-time winner to seal a 4-3 win for the Kazakh champions who had been reduced to 10 men.
The Serbian champions Partizan went through after a 4-2 home win over 10-man Steaua Bucharest, giving them a 5-3 aggregate win against the 1986 European Cup winners.
Malmo, the Swedish champions, scored three first-half goals to secure a 3-0 win over Salzburg (3-2 on aggregate) while Albanian champions Skenderbeu are within 180 minutes of becoming the first Albanian side to reach the group stage, after beating the Moldovan champions Milsami 2-0 on the night, 4-0 on aggregate.
Celtic - 1-0 aggregate winners over FK Qarabag - can face one of five opponents in Friday's play-off draw; Astana from Kazakhstan, Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv and Swedish club Malmo could meet Ronny Deila's side. Serbian champions Partizan Belgrade and Skenderbeu - who are from Albania - are the other possible foes.
Manchester United join the competition at the same stage and like the Scottish champions have five possible opponents; Belgium's Club Brugge, CSKA Moscow, Lazio, Monaco - who beat United in the knock-out stages in 1998 - or Rapid Vienna.
The dates for play-off first leg are 18/19 August with the second legs taking place on 25/26 August. The winning teams progress to the group stage, the losing sides enter the group stage of the Europa League.
