After a late change to the venue because of the upcoming Kanye West concert, Kairat Almaty headed to Turkestan hoping to overturn a 0-1 deficit from the first leg of their UEFA Champions League qualifying tie with Levski Sofia.
The Bulgarians were right when they expected the Kazakh side to attack, as Kairat had approaching 60% of the possession for much of the game, not least in the closing stages when it took a heroic performance from the Levski goalie, Svetoslav Vutsov, to deny them. His masterclass in shot-stopping and distribution won him man of the match and many admirers heading into the next round.
They say there is only one stat that counts, but overall data shows that Kairat Almaty gave it everything they could, right to the final whistle. Outclassing their guests in almost every department – corners, shots, passes, and crosses – however, was not enough, and they now enter qualifying for the Europa League still hopeful of continued participation in European footballing competition. They will meet either PAOK from Greece or Anderlecht from Belgium.
Levski Sofia had a job to do, and they did it – no frills, no real moments of class, just a combination of a single early Reinaldo goal and then steadfast defending for the remainder of the match.
The home side, albeit on an ‘away’ pitch in certain regards, were well supported by a vocal crowd, but struggled to break down a composed Bulgarian side, well organised and very fit, playing with an advantage from the first leg knowing that they only needed to keep a clean sheet to progress. They have now secured at least EUR 9.6 million from UEFA’s prize pool for this season, according to calculations by the Football Meets Data platform.
