Europa League: Rangers beaten, Benfica hammer Hearts
· RTÉ Sport · 2026-08-06 · nguồn gốc
Rangers paid the price for sloppy defending as they let slip an early Europa League lead to lose 2-1 to Jagiellonia Bialystok in Poland.
Derek McInnes' first European tie as Gers boss got off to a dream start in the first leg of the third qualifier when home defender Guilherme Montoia turned a Tuur Rommens cross into his own net after just four minutes.
However, Kajetan Szmyt levelled in the 13th minute with a preventable goal to rattle the Light Blues then added a second eight minutes later after more defensive slackness from the visitors.
McInnes brought on Cammy Devlin, Nico Raskin and Findlay Curtis for the start of the second half and the visitors dominated the ball but could not find a way to a leveller, with Curtis crashing a shot off the post in added time, and they will have to turn the tie around at Ibrox next week.
Hearts endured a predictably bruising evening in Lisbon as their hopes of progressing to the Europa League were all but ended by a 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Benfica.
After a largely demoralising summer since being pipped to the William Hill Premiership title by Celtic in May, 1,300 embattled Jambos travelled to the Portuguese capital for one of their most formidable-looking fixtures in living memory braced for a fourth consecutive defeat under new boss Wouter Vrancken.
And that was exactly what transpired as Marco Silva's Benfica opened the scoring in the third minute, led by three at the break and then added another three in the second half to remove all sense of jeopardy from next Thursday’s second leg at Tynecastle.
While the Portuguese giants are on course to face the losers of the Champions League tie between Aarhus and Sabah Baku in the Europa League play-off round, Hearts are staring at a likely Conference League play-off against Rapid Vienna, who lead Paide 4-1 after the first leg in Estonia.
Hibernian will take a valuable lead to North Macedonia for the second leg of their Conference League third qualifying round clash as two former League of Ireland players helped them to a 2-1 win against Shkendija.
Hibs had gone in front in the 73rd minute through ex-Sligo Rovers forward Owen Elding, only for the visitors to level less than three minutes later courtesy of Marko Gjorgjievski.
However, Dubliner Warren O'Hora - once of Bohemians - notched a 90th-minute winner when he bundled in a Jordan Obita corner to leave Hibs in a good position to reach the competition’s play-off round when they make the trip to Skopje for the second leg.