On 5 August, Sturm Graz went down 0-2 to Turkish side Fenerbahçe, in the first leg of the Champions League’s third qualifying round, and while the scoreline stings, it settles nothing yet. The second leg follows on 11 August in Graz, and by then we’ll know which club moves on to the play-off round.
A four-goal rout of Hearts opened the door to round three
In the second qualifying round, Sturm drew Scottish side Hearts, Heart of Midlothian by their full name, and about as kind a draw as this stage of the competition tends to hand out. Playing at home in Graz on 21 July, the team put four unanswered goals past a side that never really got going, with Jon Gorenc Stanković getting things started in the 4th minute. Jeyland Mitchell doubled the lead early in the second half, in the 50th, and three minutes later Luca Weinhandl made it three, finishing in the 53rd, by which point Hearts’ resistance had more or less evaporated. Jürgen Heil closed the account in the 59th, with 15,822 in the stands to watch it happen.
The second leg in Edinburgh went just as smoothly, Sturm winning 2-0 there as well and making the 6-0 aggregate feel almost inevitable by the end. That rout arguably set the bar too high for what came next. The next opponent was ranked well above Hearts, and plenty capable of undoing an entire summer’s work in a single match.
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A sudden stumble in Istanbul
Sturm’s third-round opponent turned out to be Fenerbahçe, a clear step up in class from Hearts, and away in Istanbul on 5 August, the Austrians lost 0-2. Anderson Talisca opened the scoring in the 8th minute. Just before the break, in the 44th, Mason Greenwood doubled the lead off a chance Marco Asensio had created, and by that point Fenerbahçe looked to be cruising already. Both goals came before halftime, which left Sturm chasing the game for the entire second forty-five, already two down.
A two-goal away defeat isn’t fatal by the standards of Champions League qualifying. Sturm itself produced that exact margin against Hearts, winning the second leg 2-0. Now the task runs the other way, and against a considerably stronger side.
Three matches into the summer campaign, Sturm has scored six goals and conceded two: all six of the former against Hearts, both of the latter in that single match against Fenerbahçe. Read that way, it looks less like a slump than one rough night set against an otherwise confident run.
What gets decided on 11 August
The second leg kicks off on 11 August in Graz at 20:30 CET, and the maths from there are blunt: Sturm needs to win by three goals or more to go through on aggregate. Win by two, and all that buys Sturm is a level aggregate score, which sends the tie into extra time instead. Level again after that, and it comes down to penalties.
For both clubs, there’s more than pride riding on this. The winner advances to the Champions League play-off round, keeping alive a shot at the league phase, while the loser drops into the Europa League’s league phase instead, a European autumn either way, just one tier down.
Sturm’s home crowd has already shown up once this summer. Almost 16,000 people turned out for the first leg against Hearts in Graz, and a visit from a Turkish club isn’t likely to thin that out. The team has already proven it can score four in a match. Do it again on 11 August, and Sturm goes through to the play-off round without needing extra time.
