HJK advanced to the group stage of the Conference League by beating Farul Constanta 3–2 on aggregate. The Helsinki team started the second leg from the chasing position and showed mature play to their supporters in Töölö’s evening.
Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi beat Romanian Farul Constanta with 2–0 goals in the second leg of the Conference League qualifiers in Helsinki and progressed to the group stage with 3–2 aggregate goals. The first leg of the match ended in Romania with Farul winning 2–1. The block draw will take place on Friday.
In the second leg in Töölö, the home team HJK started the match actively and tried to control the ball in the central area. Even after losing the ball, the team’s pressing game was active, which was reflected in the Romanians’ challenges in the opening game.
Bojan Radulovic was to take the Helsinki team into the lead after five minutes from a corner kick, but the goal was disallowed for offside. However, HJK’s Serbian striker was able to equalize the situation at the twenty-minute mark with his 1-0 goal as a result of a mistake by Farul’s defensive end.
The first substitution of the match was seen after 24 minutes of play, when the Brazilian, who was awarded as the best player in the world in 1999, Rivaldo son Rivaldinho left the field due to injury.
After HJK’s lead goal, ball control was transferred to the visitors, but the home team dropped all players under the ball and thus managed to block the center. In the first half, the Helsinki team managed to keep the goalkeeper they acquired in the summer Niki Mäenpään quite unemployed, except for the corner kicks seen at the end of the first half and their aftermath.
After the possession of the ball passed to Farul, excellent opportunities opened up for the people of Helsinki to counterattack, but the lead goal that was important for the pair of matches was not born in the first half.
HJK entered the second half as active as in the first half. Radulovic and Top for Keski and at the hour mark Pursue Soirbut Farul was spared the setback.
At seventy minutes into the game, the Helsinki team secured the group stage. After the central preliminary work, Lucas Lingman managed to find Radulovic with his pass in front of the goal, who scored his second goal of the evening.
Ten minutes before full time, the Belgian striker of the visitors Louis Munteanu still managed to pass HJK goalkeeper Mäenpää, but Helsinki’s winger Soiri cleared the ball from the goal line. However, the heart palpitations of HJK supporters were in vain, as the situation was judged to be offside.
The Conference League is UEFA’s third highest international competition after the Champions League and Europa League. The conference league has been played since 2021.
HJK started the qualifiers for international competitions with the matches of the first qualifying round of the Champions League against Northern Ireland’s Larne. The people from Helsinki progressed from the pair of matches with 2–1 goals, but in the second qualifying round, Molde from Norway was also better than the people from Helsinki.
HJK’s Euro sky continued in the third qualifying round of the Europa League against Azerbaijan’s Qarabag, but the team lost the pair of matches with 2-4 aggregate goals and continued to the Conference League qualifiers against Farul.
The place in the group stage of the European games is the fifth in the history of the Helsinki club. In the 1998–1999 season, HJK advanced to the group stage in the Champions League, in 2014–2015 and 2022–2023 in the Europa League, and in 2021–2022 and 2023–2024 in the Conference League.