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On Wednesday, all remaining 14 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round matches were played. The "Lithuanian" club, Hearts, had an unsuccessful match against AEK Athens, while CSKA made a big step towards the group stages by defeating their opponents. The matches involving Lithuanians in Slovan and Spartak ended goalless. A surprise was recorded in Austria, where Red Bull won against Valencia, and Liverpool won in the final minutes against Maccabi. In Valdas Ivanauskas' Edinburgh team lineup for the match against AEK, Edgaras Jankauskas returned after starting the match on the bench. However, it was revealed just before the match that Julien Brellier and Deividas Česnauskis would not be able to play due to illness. They were replaced on the field by the team's newcomer Hristos Karipidis and Saulius Mikoliūnas. The guests immediately took a proactive approach to the match, with Steven Pressley hitting the crossbar of his own goal. The only real threat in the first half to the Greek goalkeepers was a ricochet from a defender that S. Mikoliūnas hit towards goal. However, AEK dominated the field and mostly tried their luck with shots from afar. Once after a shot by Julio Cesar, Craig Gordon saved Hearts, while Michal Pospisil redirected the ball towards goal after a corner kick. In the second half, the Athens team maintained the initiative, with Nikos Liberopoulos coming closest to scoring. In the 55th minute, E. Jankauskas replaced H. Karipidis, and the Lithuanian striker helped create the first goal of the match. Receiving the ball from Takis Fyssas, he passed it to Roman Bednar in the penalty area, who was disrupted by a defender, but S. Mikoliūnas, who rushed to the ball, unexpectedly put Hearts ahead. However, the hosts complicated their own situation when Bruno Aguiar received a second yellow card, reducing Edinburgh's team to ten players. Although in the 75th minute S. Mikoliūnas had the opportunity to double the lead, he failed to hit the ball from a few meters away, and the chance went wasted. AEK pressed the goal of the Scottish club, and although J. Cesar failed to score twice from penalties, in one episode the Brazilian missed the goal, and in the other he was prevented by the goalkeeper, and in the penultimate minute Greek player Pantelis Kapetanos equalized the score with a header after a pass from the flank, and in the final minutes of the match, N. Liberopoulos's shot redirected by C. Berra's leg changed direction into the goal. Hearts experienced failure and now need to score two goals and defeat AEK in Athens to qualify for the group stage. Of all the teams playing on Wednesday, perhaps the closest to the target was CSKA Moscow, who won with a score of 3-0 against League 2 underdogs FK Rabotnicki. CSKA scored twice from Ivica Olic in the second half and once from Wagner Love in the 83rd minute against MSK Ruzomberok. Deividas Šemberas played the entire match and received a yellow card in the 88th minute. Moscow Spartak played a goalless draw away from home against FC Slovan Liberec. Tomas Radzinevičius and Ignas Dedura were on opposite sides and did not play. Three other Eastern European teams won on Wednesday - Kiev's Dynamo convincingly defeated Istanbul's Fenerbahce 3-1, Donetsk's Shakhtar won with a minimal lead against Warsaw's Legia, and Sofia's Levski unexpectedly defeated Verona's Chievo 2-0. An interesting match took place in Istanbul, where Galatasaray scored four goals against Mlada Boleslav in just over an hour, but then conceded two more goals and scored one, with the match ending in a 5-2 victory. The biggest surprise was provided by Salzburg's Red Bull, who managed to win at home against Valencia after Karel Pitak scored in the 73rd minute, while last year's champions Liverpool narrowly avoided defeat at home against Haifa's Maccabi - the English club was trailing after Gustavo Boccoli scored in the 29th minute, but a few minutes later their newcomer Craig Bellamy equalized, and at the end of the match, another debutant Mark Gonzalez secured the win for the hosts. In addition to AEK's victory away from home, Ajax, after winning against Kobenhavn, also won their match. The intriguing match between Hamburger and Osasuna ended goalless, the match between Standard Liege and Steaua Bucharest ended in a draw, and Milan gained a one-goal advantage over Crvena Zvezda. The return matches of the third qualifying round will take place on August 22-23. Champions League Third Qualifying Round Wednesday Match Statistics: Lille 3 - 0 Rabotnicki Skopje 60' [1 - 0] Zoran Jovanoski (own goal) 70' [2 - 0] Fernandes Michel Bastos (penalty) 72' [3 - 0] Nicolas Fauvergue CSKA Moscow 3 - 0 MFK Ruzomberok 59' [1 - 0] Ivica Olic 65' [2 - 0] Ivica Olic 83' [3 - 0] Vagner Love Dynamo Kiev 3 - 1 Fenerbahce Istanbul 1' [1 - 0] Diogo Rincon 48' [1 - 1] Marco Aurelio 67' [2 - 1] Diogo Rincon 83' [3 - 1] Ayila Yussuf 76' Serkan Balci ("Fenerbahce") sent off Shakhtar Donetsk 1 - 0 Legia Warsaw 39' [1 - 0] Elano Blumer (penalty) Levski Sofia 2 - 0 Chievo Verona 8' [1 - 0] Valeri Domovchiskiy 86' [2 - 0] Cedric Bardon (penalty) Galatasaray Istanbul 5 - 2 Mlada Boleslav 10' [1 - 0] Sasa Ilic (penalty) 43' [2 - 0] Arda Turan 49' [3 - 0] Hakan Sukur 62' [4 - 0] Arda Turan 83' [4 - 1] Milos Brezinsky 85' [4 - 2] Marek Kulic 90' [5 - 2] Sabri Sarioglu Slovan Liberec 0 - 0 Spartak Moscow Hamburg 0 - 0 Osasuna Copenhagen 1 - 2 Ajax Amsterdam 37' [0 - 1] Klaas Jan Huntelaar 45' [1 - 1] Brede Hangeland 84' [1 - 2] Klaas Jan Huntelaar Standard Liege 2 - 2 Steaua Bucharest 9' [0 - 1] Sorin Ion Paraschiv 18' [1 - 1] Milan Rapaic 52' [2 - 1] Milan Rapaic 80' [2 - 2] Petre Marin Hearts 1 - 2 AEK Athens 62' [1 - 0] Saulius Mikoliūnas 89' [1 - 1] Pantelis Kapetanos 90' [1 - 2] Christophe Berra (own goal) 66' Bruno Aguiar (Hearts) sent off Milan 1 - 0 Crvena Zvezda Belgrade 22' [1 - 0] Filippo Inzaghi Red Bull Salzburg 1 - 0 Valencia 73' [1 - 0] Karel Pitak Liverpool 2 - 1 Maccabi Haifa 29' [0 - 1] Gustavo Bocholi 33' [1 - 1] Craig Bellamy 88' [2 - 1] Mark Gonzalez
