Maccabi Tel Aviv defeat CSKA Sofia 3-1 in UEFA Europa League third round, second leg action but fall on aggregate 4-3 to the Bulgarians and will now drop down to the Conference League playoff round where they will play Lugano from Switzerland for a place in the competition’s league phase. The yellow-and-blue had a tall task at hand as the match kicked off but Dor Peretz quickly scored the opening goal inside of the box as he tapped home an Osher Davida ball for a 1-0 lead in the 12th minute.

Davida was again in on the action when he lofted a ball into the box that Ester Sokler nodded into the goal but Stefano Sensi quickly pulled a marker back to make it 2-1 in the 66th minute. Just two minutes later Helio Varela put the ball on goal that keeper Fedor Lapoukhov knocked into his own goal to give Kenny Miller’s squad a 3-1 advantage but that would be as close as Maccabi would get as they were knocked out of the Europa League.

“I’m pleased with our performance tonight,” Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach Miller began. “We came here believing that we could win the game and advance to the next round. We came very close and that only shows how crucial the goal we conceded last week was. Despite the deficit we came into the game with, we continued to believe and we proved that when we play at our level, stick to the game plan and do the right things, we are a very good team.”

The coach is already looking ahead to the next challenge, “The work ahead of the Conference League playoff begins right now. Our main goal is to play in the European group stage this season and we will prepare in the best possible way to be ready for next week’s match and achieve the result that will take us through to the next round.”