Roger Schmidt and David Neres put an end to Champions League dream Dinamo Kiev | Foreign football

For Dinamo Kiev, reaching the group stage would have been an extraordinary achievement. The team did not play an official game for seven months due to the war in its own country (and the cancellation of the competition). Nevertheless, in the preliminaries, Fenerbahçe and Sturm Graz were dealt with successively.

However, Benfica clearly turned out to be a few sizes too big in the play-offs, partly due to Neres excelling in the return in Lisbon. Captain Nicolás Otamendi headed in the 1-0 in the 27th minute from a cross from the Brazilian.

In the closing stages of the first half, Benfica took further distance from Dinamo Kiev with goals from Rafa Silva, who took advantage of a blunder at the back of the Ukrainians, and Neres. The attacker was close to a goal earlier in the game with a bicycle kick.

Schmidt worked at PSV for the past two seasons. Last year, the Eindhoven team had to lose in the play-offs of the Champions League against Benfica, which also made it through the group stage and eliminated Ajax in the eighth finals. The club from Lisbon stranded in the quarter-finals against Liverpool.

Watch David Neres’ goal.

Tjaronn Chery reached the Champions League with Israeli club Maccabi Haifa. The return against Red Star Belgrade seemed to be heading for an extension, until the Serbian Milan Pavkov worked the ball into his own goal in the last minute: 2-2. Last week Maccabi Haifa had won 3-2 in front of his own audience.

The 34-year-old Chery, who played for FC Twente, FC Emmen, ADO Den Haag and FC Groningen, among others, then scored the winning goal. Red Star gave away a 2-1 lead in Israel and even a 2-0 lead in Belgrade.

Viktoria Plzen also managed to rectify a crooked situation. After the 0-0 draw in Azerbaijan, the Czechs trailed 0-1 at home. In the second half, Jan Kopic and Jan Kliment turned the game around, so that the team can participate in the main tournament again after three years.

The last returns in the play-offs will be played on Wednesday evening. Then PSV against Rangers is on the program, among others. The first meeting in Scotland ended in 2-2 last week.