The dreams of T&T’s Robert Primus and Lester Peltier to competine in the UEFA Champions League competition moved a step closer after their respective clubs advanced to the Third Round of qualifiers.
On Wednesday, the 23-year-old Primus was not among Aktobe’s 18-man squad, but it still strolled to a comfortable 3-0 blanking of Georgian club, Dinamo Tbilisi at the Ortaliq Stadium, Kazakhstan in their second-leg tie.
This secured a 4-0 aggregate win and a Third Round meeting with the winner of Stromsgodset and Steau Bucuresti of Romania which got the better of Norway’s Stromsgodset 2-0 yesterday and 3-0 over both legs.
Domestically in Kazakhstan, Aktobe, the five time League and Super Cup champions sit atop the table with 39 points from 20 matches, three clear of Kairat which is closely followed by Astana and Shakhter Karagandy, both with 35 and Kaisar, four points behind.
A day earlier, Peltier was an unused substitute for Slovakian champions, Slovan Bratislava who shut-out host The New Saints of Wales 2-0 at Belle Vue Stadium, Denbigshire to complete a 3-0 home-and-away victory.
Bratislava now faces Maldova’s FK Sheriff Tiraspol which dumped Montenegro’s Sutjeska 2-0 and 3-0 in their two meetings.
At home in the Slovakian Super League, Bratislava began its title defence on a winning note, 2-1 over Podbrezova after it kicked off the season with a first Super Cup triumph, 1-0 over Kosice.
On Saturday, Peltier and his clubmates will go after a second league win when they face Spartak Trnava ahead of their tie with Sheriff.
Following the third round of the Uefa Champions League qualifiers, teams will do battle in one more qualifying round for the right to earn places in the group stages of the prestigious Uefa Champions League 2014/2015 season where ten-time champions Real Madrid are the defending champions.
Yesterday, in the Europa League, national forward Jamal Gay and his RoPs clubmates will need to get a win away to Greek side, Asteras Tripolis after a 1-1 draw in the first-leg at home a week ago.
Over in Iceland, former St Anthony’s College striker, Jonathan Glenn, 26, scored his league-leading fourth goal of the season as IBV which also has another T&T player, Dominic Adams, also 26 in its camp defeated Fram 2-0 on Sunday to move up to seven spot on the 12-team table with 13 points from 12 matches, 15 behind FH while Stjatnan is second with 26 and KR and Vikingur Reykjavik, joint third with 22 points each.