The quest to reach the group stages of the UEFA Champions League ended for seven Super Eagles players on Tuesday night following the elimination of their clubs.
Rangers, Genk, Slavia Prague, Spartak Moscow, and Olympiacos were all sent packing in the third qualifying round of the competition on the same night with their Nigerian stars.
Rangers were surprisingly knocked out by Sweden’s Malmo with the Scottish champions’ Super Eagles pair, Joe Aribo and Leon Balogun, in action.
Despite going down to 10 men with the sending off of Bonke Innocent in the first half, Malmo won 2-1 in Glasgow to advance 4-2 on aggregate.
Aribo and Balogun played the full match against the 10 men of Malmo, but could not prevent Steven Gerrard’s side from crashing out.
One of Europe’s top scorers last season with 30 league goals, Paul Onuachu, could not help Belgium’s Genk escape elimination against Shakhtar Donetsk.
The towering Super Eagles striker was on for 82 minutes as Shakhtar won 2-1 in Donetsk to qualify 4-2 on aggregate.
Another Super Eagles striker Cyril Dessers scored Genk’s only goal in the 90th minute on Tuesday night after coming off the bench to replace Jhon Lucumi in the 68th minute.
Nigeria forward Peter Olayinka was in the starting line-up for Slavia Prague but was off injured after only 16 minutes in their 1-0 second-leg win over Ferencvaros in Prague.
Slavia had however lost the first leg 2-0 in Hungary last week and got eliminated 2-1 on aggregate.
Benfica defeated Victor Moses’ Spartak Moscow 2-0 in Lisbon without the former Super Eagles forward in action as he was injured.
The Portuguese club knocked out the Russian side 4-0 on aggregate.
New Olympiacos signing Henry Onyekuru was an unused substitute for the Greek champions in their 2-2 draw with Ludogorets.
The tie ended 3-3 on aggregate but the Bulgarians won 4-1 on penalties to advance to the play-offs.
