APOEL FC Nicosia was defeated on Tuesday by Astana FC in Kazakhstan, in the first leg of the Champions League play offs.
The Cypriot champions lost 1-0 to Astana. The second match will take place in Nicosia on the 26th of August.
The Nicosia club were punished for a piece of poor defending on 14 minutes to allow Baurzhan Dzholchiyev to score the game’s only goal while Portuguese coach Domingos Paciencia concerns will now have been heightened after watching his side once again fail to score despite creating chances with new forwards Luis Leal and Mateusz Piatkowski once again firing blanks.
“We knew that it would be a tough game,” Paciencia the Apoel manager told Cytavision after the game. “This is a tough ground to come with a tricky playing surface [Astroturf pitch]. We knew that Astana would pile bodies forward and try to gain the upper hand from set pieces.”
“We now need to put this result behind us. The first half is over and now we need to focus our attention on turning things around at home next week.”
APOEL had advanced to the Champions League groups in 2009-10, 2011-12 and 2014-15.
If on the 26th of August APOEL loses, it will continue its European course in the Europa League groups, where it participated in 2013-2014.