Tampere United's Champions League dreams crushed by Rosenborg

Full house witnesses clinical Norwegian performance

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Tampere United's dreams of progressing to the lucrative group stage of this year's European Champions League lasted precisely 20 minutes on Wednesday evening, before Rosenborg FK of Norway showed why they have been in the ECL on 10 occasions in the past and why TamU are seeking to make their début.
      Last year's Norwegian champions won the game 3-0, and effectively wrapped things up and scotched TamU's chances of progressing with two goals inside two minutes midway through the first half, courtesy of Miika Koppinen (ironically, a Finn playing in the Norwegian colours) and Yssouf Koné.
      Koppinen bundled the ball home from close range after a corner, and Koné was given enough space to perform an impressively acrobatic overhead kick for the second.
     
After that, the sell-out crowd of 17,000 in Tampere's Ratina Stadium knew the game was up, and although TamU did hit the crossbar once and occasionally troubled the visitors' defence, the necessary clinical finishing was not in evidence, but the difference in class between the two outfits was.
      Koné got a second goal eight minutes from time to rub salt in it, following up to tap in after a free-kick from Marek Sapara, who was also the architect of Koppinen's goal.
      The result leaves Ari Hjelm's side with little to look forward to from their visit to Trondheim in two weeks. Overturning a 3-0 deficit away from home is probably the stuff of Roy of the Rovers fiction.
      Nevertheless, all credit to TamU for getting this far, and it is to be hoped they can enjoy some success in the UEFA Cup competition, if they are not to be among the big boys in the ECL.
     
There will at least (in all probability) be some Finnish involvement when the group stages of the Champions League get going, however. Sami Hyypiä played a full 90 minutes on Wednesday in Liverpool's 1-0 away victory at Toulouse. The 2005 champions and last May's beaten finalists re unlikely to surrender that advantage at Anfield.
      For Hannu Tihinen and Petri Pasanen, things are not quite so straightforward. Tihinen's Zurich could only draw 1-1 at home to Besiktas of Turkey, while Pasanen's Werder Bremen will take only a slender 2-1 advantage with them when they travel to Dynamo Zagreb in a fortnight. Both players played the entire game.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Tampere United spring shock to knock out Levski Sofia in Champions League qualifier (8.8.2007)

Links:
  UEFA

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