UEFA Champions League Wrap: Late penalty boosts Fenerbahce

A 95th-minute penalty put Fenerbahce in control of their UEFA Champions League third-round qualifying clash with Salzburg on Wednesday.

The Turkish club are controversial participants in this year’s competition, having gained an emergency ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport which allows them to continue fighting their two-year match-fixing ban.

Their Austrian opponents looked set to make that fact irrelevant, however, as they entered the dying moments of the teams’ first-leg tie 1-0 up after Alan had expertly chipped the goalkeeper following fine footwork from Kevin Kampl.

However, Fenerbahce were given a late lifeline when a controversial handball call in the box saw them awarded a penalty, and Cristian Baroni subsequently converted to put his side ahead on away goals.

Celtic were also forced to wait to carve out a 1-0 aggregate lead against Elfsborg, though their goal came with a relatively hefty 14 minutes of normal time remaining.

Kris Commons was the scorer, nodding home an in-swinging cross from Emilio Izaguirre to earn his side a narrow victory ahead of the return leg in Sweden.

Molde’s hopes of progressing to the group stages of Europe’s premier cup competition for the first time since the 1999-00 season hang by a thread following Wednesday’s meeting with Legia Warsaw, which ended 1-1.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men took the lead courtesy of Daniel Chima, but were pegged back by Vladimir Dvalishvili before Fredrik Gulbrandsen’s dismissal saw them hanging on in the final 15 minutes.

Partizan also had a man sent off in their first-leg fixture, with Milos Jojic receiving his marching orders as the Serbian club slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Ludogorets in Bulgaria.

Elsewhere, Marcos Tavares grabbed a priceless away goal for Maribor as they drew 1-1 with APOEL.