Tampere Ilves progressed to the third qualifying round of the Football Conference League by knocking out Austria Wien.
Tampere Ilves made a huge surprise and advanced to the third qualifying round of the Football Conference League.
The second leg as a guest of Austria Wien was a wildly exciting play in which Ilves leveled three times and finally won 5–4 in a penalty shootout.
Just a moment before the penalty shootout, the substitute who scored the goal became Ilves’ hero Take Virtanen, who parried Austria’s last attempt. All five of Ilves’ shots were successful. Virtanen was injured in the opening part a week ago, so Ilves was otherwise guarding the goal in the match Ville Seppä.
Ilves got to the second leg played in Vienna with a 2–1 lead, but after some intense stages, the score was 5–5.
Center balls created problems for Ilves’ defense. Maurice Malone leveled the match for Austria’s first goal slot in the 22nd minute. Just five minutes later Andreas Gruber headed Austria into the lead for the first time in a pair of matches from Malone’s cross.
Ilves showed his tenacity and equalized the punts immediately from the next attack. Lauri Ala-Myllymäki was awake and shot the ball into the net Santeri Haaralan from the company’s return ball.
Gambian Abubakar Barry finished Austria in the lead again in the pair of matches at the end of a great composition, after the match had been played in the 68th minute.
Ilves came close to equalizing in the 88th minute, when Juhani Pikkarainen and later Ala-Myllymäki’s corner kick attempts were blocked from the goal line. From the next situation, a joyful equalizer finally emerged Aapo Mäenpää from the leg. Roope Risk managed to put the ball in the net again moments later, but was barely offside.
When we got up to speed in the goal scrums, we continued in the same way in overtime.
Defending the centers again caused problems for Ilves. The cross from the left flew through the Ilves defense to the back post, the Slovenian striker To Nik Prelecwho gave Austria the lead again in the 97th minute.
But that’s just how Ilves rose to the level for the third time. Austria got a taste of its own medicine when Marius Söderbäck continued the cross from the back post to the goal at the 112th minute and took the match to the tough guys.
In the next round, Ilves will most likely face Sweden’s Djurgården, who will play the second leg against Luxembourg’s Niedercorn on Thursday with a 3–0 lead.