Michael Duffy: gave Derry dream start.
Derry City face an uphill task if they are to progress to the next round of the Europa League as they trail Shakhtar Soligorsk 2-1 (3-1 on aggregate) in their second round second league qualifying tie in Belarus.
Trailing by a single goal from last Thursday’s first leg tie in the Brandywell, Derry made the dream start when Michael Duffy put the Candystripes ahead in the sixth minute.
However, the lead only lasted four minutes before Sergej Balanovich brought the home side level.
Shakhtar took a firm grip on the tie when Alexandre Guruli’s long range effort deflected off Danny Ventre, giving Doherty no chance.
Derry need two goals in the remaining 45 minutes if they are to have any chance of going through to the third round – a tall ask but, as the legendary Jimmy Greaves once said: “Football is a funny old game.”
Shakhtar Soligorsk: Artur Kotenko, Aleksej Yanushkevich, Sergej Matvejchik, Igor Kuzmenok, Aleksandr Yurevich, Artem Stargorodskiy, Nikolai Kashevski, Sergej Balanovich, Nikolai Yanush, Dmitri Osipenko, Alexandre Guruli, Andrej Tsevan
Substitutes: Aleksej Rios, Andrej Lyavonchyk, Yurij Kovalev, Filipp Ivanov, Ilya Gavrilov, Ilya Galyuza.
Derry City: Gerard Doherty, Ryan McBride, Stephen Dooley, Cliff Byrne, Aaron Barry, Michael Duffy, Patrick McEleney, Barry McNamee, Barry Molloy, Danny Ventre, Rory Patterson.
Substitutes: Ciaran Gallagher, Shane McEleney, Philip Lowry, Ryan Curran, Nathan Boyle, Joshua Tracey.
Referee: Elmir Pilav (Bosnia & Herz).
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