Maccabi Tel Aviv now know who their first European opponent will be. Cluj, the Romanian League champion will face the Yellow & Blue in second round Champions League qualifying action after defeating Astana 3:1 (3:2 aggregate) on Wednesday in the return leg of their first round matchup.
The first leg against Cluj will be on Wednesday July 24th at 21:00 while the return leg will be played the following week on Tuesday July 30 at 20:00 at the Netanya Stadium.
There are a number of familiar faces playing for Cluj including midfielder Ovidiu Hoban who played for Hapoel Beer Sheva (didn’t play in the 2nd leg against Astana). Dan Petrescu is the club’s coach and arrived at Cluj in the 2017/18 season after primarily managing in Asia (China and Qatar), and won the league title in his first year at the helm. Some may be familiar with Petrescu as he features in the Italian and English leagues in the 1990’s including playing with Chelsea for five seasons.
This past season, Cluj had a battle on their hands for the league championship with Steaua București which resulted in a photo finish taking the title by just two points. Last week the Romanians began their 2019/20 campaign and on Wednesday in the Champions League qualifier, French striker Billel Omrani score two of the the club’s 3 goals while Astana actually had a short lived 1:0 lead after finding the back of the goal in the 4’.
Maccabi Tel Aviv returns to Champions League qualification after a three year absence. The last time the Yellow & Blue took part they advanced to the group stages of the competition by getting past Hibernians from Malta, Viktoria Plzen of the Czech Republic and Basel from Switzerland.
