More big names on the brink as Champions League third qualifying round reaches a conclusion

For­mer win­ners Celtic are amongst a num­ber of big name teams already fight­ing for their lives in this season’s UEFA Cham­pi­ons League.

Celtic travel to Rus­sia des­per­ate to over­turn a 1–0 deficit, but with oppo­nents Dinamo Moscow on a fine run of form, defender Gary Cald­well knows it will take some­thing spe­cial to emerge vic­to­ri­ous. In addi­tion, the Scot­tish giants have never won a Euro­pean tie after los­ing at home and Cald­well said: “We under­stand that it’s a big game. You have that feel­ing in your stomach.

“It would be big for us to get through but I don’t think it’s about mak­ing his­tory, it’s about get­ting through this stage of the com­pe­ti­tion and try­ing to qual­ify for the Cham­pi­ons League.”

Also in dan­ger of early elim­i­na­tion are Sport­ing Lis­bon who travel to Dutch club FC Twente with the scores level at 0–0. The first leg became a one sided affair after FC Twente were reduced to 10 men when their goal­keeper, Sander Boschker, was dis­missed after just 27 min­utes. How­ever, on loan Liv­er­pool goal­keeper Niko­lay Mihaylov saved the resul­tant penalty and pro­ceeded to secure a clean sheet for the visitors.

After the game Mihaylov said: “It was very hard for me as I came on with­out hav­ing any prepa­ra­tion. I just put my gloves on and went in goal. Of course the penalty save gave me some confidence.

“Now we have the sec­ond leg at home and we have the chance to decide the tie in front of our own fans.”

Else­where, last season’s UEFA Cup win­ners Shakhtar Donetsk face a dif­fi­cult trip to Roman­ian out­fit FC Timi?oara, hav­ing only man­aged a 2–2 draw in the home leg. The Roman­ian run­ners up have lit­tle his­tory in Europe but it seems a good Cham­pi­ons League bet that they will fancy their chances cour­tesy of two away goals from speedy striker Ghe­o­rghe Bucur.