The Big Leagues

Next up was the first European game of the season. We probably deserved to win, but a draw away from home with an away goal in the first leg is a good result. Its only half way though so we'll have to make sure we are on our game because one goal from them renders our away goal useless.

A game that all went wrong in the space of three minutes. First we have a player go off injured in the 42nd minute, and then in the 45th minute we have another go off injured and Jokinen goes and gets himself sent off. Not a great game, must move on quickly.

Our run of games without a win is over as we beat Stjarnan 2-0, 3-1 on aggregate, to set up a meeting with Shakhter Karagandy.

A return to winning ways in the league at last! We took a 2-0 lead before Catovic pulled one back, but KuPS never really threatened our goal after that. Back up to third in the table now.

A truly mental game. Shakhter were the clear favourites but we caught them napping and raced into a 2-0 through two wonder goals. But they responded by basically kicking the shit out of our players and I had to make three substitutions in the first half due to injuries. Just to rub it in a bit more, the ref didn't book any of their players for the challenges they made during those injuries. Shakhter then came back and eventually won 4-2 to leave them on the verge of qualification to the next round.

Dirty bastards.

What an awful game. Pretty much nothing happened in it, the only thing worth mentioning was Heimonen's third wonder goal in two games.

The second leg of the Shakhter Karagandy tie saw us get our best result of the season. We needed to overcome a 4-2 home defeat to progress, sadly that didn't happen, but we did win the game. Jokinen gave us an early lead to make the home side a bit nervy, but they equalised on the night to make it look like they were definitely going through. Then just as we were approaching half time, Shakhter had a man sent off. From there onwards, we took the game to them and soon took the lead. We kept knocking at the door, but Shakhter were able to hold us out and eliminate us from the competition. We certainly had the chances to win it, but to come here and win 2-1 is a great result for us.

Now we only have the league to concentrate on, which was our primary focus anyway.

Wow, I thought Shakhter Karagandy were dirty, but this lot take it to a whole new level. I was playing Mortal Kombat last time I saw such brutality. What made it even worse is that it worked for them as they stole a 1-0 win despite being down to ten men for most of the game. Our top goalscorer, Kuqi, is going to be out for a while with a broken ankle thanks to this lot. A spot of revenge is in order next time we meet.