Lopes Absent as Shamrock Rovers Fall in Champions League Opener After World Cup Run
Lopes Absent as Shamrock Rovers Fall in Champions League Opener After World Cup Run
Shamrock Rovers began their UEFA Champions League qualifying campaign without defender Roberto "Pico" Lopes, who was unavailable after returning to Dublin on Monday following Cape Verde's round-of-32 exit at the FIFA World Cup. Rovers lost 2-0 to Floriana in the first leg in Malta, with the second leg scheduled at home the following Tuesday.
Lopes, 34, who has been a fixture at Shamrock Rovers since 2016, was part of a Cape Verde side that pushed defending champion Argentina and Lionel Messi to a 3-2 defeat at Miami Gardens in the round of 32. His return left him short of match fitness and outside the squad for the Malta trip. "I'll miss the game in Malta, unfortunately," Lopes told reporters at Dublin airport, "but I'm looking forward to getting back into training and getting back to doing what I love." rink hockey match betting
Across ten first-qualifying-round fixtures played on the same day, the competition's opening goal came in Gibraltar, where Lincoln Red Imps beat Andorran club Inter Club d'Escaldes 3-1. The scorer was left back Nano, 41, who converted a penalty in the 16th minute - making him older than Cristiano Ronaldo at the time of the goal. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, champion Borac Banja Luka drew 1-1 at home to Levski Sofia, also without their sole World Cup representative, 18-year-old goalkeeper Mladen Jurkas. The season's first Champions League action also took place in San Marino and the Faroe Islands, nations that did not qualify for the World Cup.
Four additional first-round matches were scheduled the following day, including fixtures in Estonia, Moldova, and Kazakhstan, where Kairat Almaty - who reached the Champions League group stage in the previous edition and faced Real Madrid, Arsenal, and Inter Milan - returned to qualifying. Belarus champion Vitebsk was required to play its nominal home fixture at a neutral venue in Hungary, without supporters, under UEFA regulations that have barred Belarusian clubs from hosting matches on home soil since Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian clubs remain suspended from all UEFA competitions. First-round Conference League ties also got under way on the same day, in Albania and Luxembourg, while the Europa League was set to begin Thursday with Qarabag, Dynamo Kyiv, and Ferencvaros among the sides in action.
