The first meeting at Hisingen ended 2-2 last week. On Thursday evening, BK Häcken traveled to Scotland for the return meeting with Aberdeen in the playoff for the Europa League group game this fall.
After only three minutes, Franklin Tebo was close to giving Häcken a dream start on the return. The centre-back got the best of a corner from Samuel Gustafson but couldn’t direct it down enough. The end went over goal to kick-in for Aberdeen.
It wasn’t a goal that time – but it would be exactly ten minutes later.
When the game was 14 minutes old, he struck in what was supposed to be his last game for BK Häcken, Ibrahim Sadiq. The Ghanaian took the lead with a heavy finish from distance that deliciously found its way into the far end to make it 1-0.
In the 25th minute came Aberdeen’s biggest chance. Duk won a running duel with Even Hovland and came one on one with Peter Abrahamsson. But Abrahamsson made an impressive save and averted the situation.
And it was a half where Abrahamsson was forced to work. With nine minutes left in the first half, Bojan Miovski got to the top of a post in Häcken’s penalty area and got a well-directed header. But Abrahamsson stretched out with his full length and steered the header into the crossbar and out.
In a real Aberdeen onslaught, 2-0 Häcken came a little out of nowhere. Mikkel Rygaard advanced towards the home team’s penalty area and then found Sadiq behind the backline. The forward made no mistake but poked the ball past the Aberdeen goalkeeper into the goal to make it 2-0.
When the second half was five minutes old, Srdjan Hrstic got a golden opportunity to make it 3-0 and kill the game altogether. He was freed by Sadiq and given a shot position two meters in front of an open goal – but managed to shoot over. Hrstic, Sadiq and Rygaard could hardly believe their eyes that there was no goal, the trio looked completely dismayed.
Instead, Aberdeen scored the next goal. Franklin Tebo missed a clearance and instead hit Duk, who fell to the ground. After VAR review, the home team was awarded a penalty which Miovski safely managed to make it 1-2.
Shortly afterwards, Miovski ran away from Häcken’s back line and ended up one on one with Abrahamsson. However, the North Macedonian striker did not even manage to score, but placed his finish close outside Abrahamsson’s right post.
With a quarter of an hour to play, Sadiq was a hair’s breadth away from scoring a hat-trick. The 23-year-old grunted a curling finish from the right in the penalty area that ricocheted off the far post and out.
With only ten minutes remaining, and Aberdeen pressing for an equalizer to take the game to extra time, Häcken equalized before Hisingslagen’s 2-0 goal. Sadiq was brought down by Slobodan Rubezic and, after initially being booked for filming, Häcken was awarded a penalty after VAR review. Amor Layouni managed the penalty safely to make it 3-1.
3-1 later became the final result and Häcken is thus ready for the group stage in the Europa League. It also means securing an additional 50 million kroner in prize money in addition to the 34.9 million kroner previously secured for the minimum group stage in the Europa Conference League.