One dream shot crushed the dreams of KuPS.
Mateja Zver’s goals knocked KuPS out of the Champions League qualifiers. PDO
Kuopio Palloseura’s women’s team’s journey in the Champions League qualifiers failed in the last round in Austria with 3–2 on aggregate.
The match against the Austrian endurance champion St. Pölten went all the way to the follow-up match, and the Finnish club did not manage to stretch the goal net during that time. Instead, the home team St. Pölten succeeded. It was the 119th minute of the match on the game clock, when the corner kick was delayed Mateja Zver shot from the corner of the penalty area with a nice shot through the goal post.
Zver also succeeded in regular time with a long shot that missed the goalkeeper Fanny Söderström powerless.
KuPS went into the second leg chasing a goal, so it had to score more goals than the opponent. In the opening half, the situation looked good when Anni Hartikainen mixed Aino Kröger scored the goals for KuPS. There were still a handful of high-quality goal chances, but the Austrians persevered.
Defeat to the opponent’s dream goals will certainly happen in the KuPS camp. The Finnish team is still not seen in the women’s Champions League, where only 16 European teams make it.
In addition, the people of Kuopio will miss out on UEFA’s prize money, which the group stage would have brought. Getting to the group stage alone would have given a pot of 400,000 euros.
KuPS defeated the Lithuanian Gintra and the Belgian Anderlecht with their exceptional Euro match.