Maccabi Tel Aviv fell 1-0 to Pafos FC (2-1 in aggregate) in second round second leg Champions League qualifying as the yellow-and-blue will now move to Europa League third round qualifying. Head Coach Zarko Lazetic’s team experienced a first half like no other as they first lost their first keeper Yoav Gerafi to an injury which was followed up by their second keeper being shown a red card for a reckless tackle outside of the area.

With ten men and a third keeper in Roie Mishpati in goal, Jaja scored the lone marker of the match to send the Cypriot squad to the next round of qualifying while Maccabi dropped down to Europa League third round qualifying where they will face Hamrun Spartans from Malta.

Maccabi looked to be on their heels early on and lost their starting keeper Gerafi who was lost to a leg injury and needed to be helped off the pitch in the 10th minute as he was replaced by youngster Ofek Meilka. However, the 20-year old wasn’t in the game for more than 20 minutes when he was issued a straight red card for tripping up Anderson outside of the box which left the yellow-and-blue with 10 men.

An a extremely upset Dor Turgeman was substituted off to make way for Roie Mishpati as he will attempt to reclaim his spot as the club’s number one keeper. But Pafos took advantage of having an extra man as Jaja score a beauty of a marker in the 40th minute to give the Cypriot squad a 1-0 lead heading into the halftime break.

Maccabi started to look for the equalizer and came close on a number of occasions despite being a man short for the entire second half as Weslley Patati had plenty of opportunities to knot the game up while Dor Peretz’s chance missed the mark as the yellow-and-blue are out of time and drop to the third round of Europa League qualifying.

“If you look at the score, we don’t deserve to be in the Champions League, but we were not alone on the pitch in this game,” Lazetic said while alluding to the referees. “Everything worked for us but they scored an executional goal. Everything in these two matches went against us between the goals and red cards. We created a lot of chances but losing here is huge for us. If I had wanted to lose, this was the way I wanted to. We have to prepare for a tough match in Europa League qualifying and making that would be huge.”

The captain Dor Peretz expressed his thoughts after being ousted from the Champions League, “It’s very disappointing as we won the league title last season for the opportunity to play in this competition. It’s very painful. Even with ten men we had opportunities but it wasn’t enough. We will have to see what we did well and what we will need to improve on and implement that in the next game.”