Europa League Qualification: Son and Kane score as Tottenham avoid Shkendija scare; Other results
SISidomex··3 min read
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Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane continued from where they stopped over the weekend in the Premier League and got Tottenham out of trouble in a 3-1 Europa League third-round qualifying win over Shkendija.
Son bagged four and Kane notched four assists and a goal as Tottenham beat Southampton 5-2 over the weekend. Both strikers scored again in the final 20 minutes in North Macedonia as Spurs progressed to a play-off against Maccabi Haifa next week.
Erik Lamela put them in front early on but a fine strike from Valmir Nafiu in the second half had threatened a frantic affair for Jose Mourinho’s men.
Mourinho introduced Harry Kane from the bench, but it was Son who restored the lead in the 70th minute before the England captain settled the contest nine minutes later.
Spurs got the job done although it wasn’t pretty and will play Israeli side Maccabi Haifa in a one-off game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next Thursday for a place in the group stages.
Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho says: “It is nice to win. Three in a row even better. Three in a row away from home even better. We just did our job. We did not play magnificently. We did our job in the end, which is to qualify for the next round.
“When Harry came to the game and Sonny started coming from the left it’s more his natural habitat and he had his chance and he scored a goal, which was very important for us.
“We were going into the direction of big risk when you have 1-1 in the result. If you let the game go you are at a big risk, so the second goal was important.
“When Harry scored it killed the game which probably we should have done in the first half. In the first half, we were 41 minutes without scoring and then we gave them space to play.
“In the second half, the game became more difficult for us after our changes and something that pleases me a lot, because I like to feel the players on the bench committed to the team and ready to make an impact. The people who came from the bench made a difference.”
Other Europa Qualifying match results
Ararat-Armenia 1-0 NK Celje AET
KuPS Kuopio 2-0 Suduva
FC Viktoria Plzen 3-0 Sonderjyske
MOL Vidi FC 0-0 Reims (MOL Vidi FC win 4-1 on penalties)
FK Rostov 1-2 Maccabi Haifa (Isr)
Besiktas 1-1 Rio Ave (Rio Ave win 4-2 on penalties)
CSKA Sofia 3-1 B36 Torshavn
Charleroi 2-1 Partizan Belgrade AET
Djurgardens IF 0-1 CFR Cluj-Napoca
Floriana FC 0-0 FC Flora Tallinn (FC Flora Tallinn win 4-2 on penalties)