Sturm Graz suffered a shock defeat at home to BATE Borisov to drop out of the UEFA Champions League.
After the first leg had finished 1-1, all was to play for, but Graz did not do themselves justice.
Aliaksandr Volodko opened the scoring with a sweet strike into the corner to grab the crucial away goal for BATE, meaning Graz had to attack.
BATE took advantage of their open play as a header from Mark Simic effectively made the tie safe.
“It is our celebration, we deserved that,” said an effusive BATE coach Viktor Goncharenko.
“It is a fantastic achievement for our club and the country as a whole.
“We have become UEFA club competition group stage regulars in a very short period of time, four years. We became a more experienced side because of our regular qualifications and this experience helped us a lot during the second leg with Sturm Graz.
“Tonight’s performance can be described in two words – good and magnificent. After our home draw not many believed we could make it”, but we did not cave and finally achieved our aim.
“The team were in confident mood and that made our task much easier. We fought like lions. Nobody deserves any bad words as we analysed our opponents very well and stuck to our game plan from the first and until the very last minute.”
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