A pair of American players learned their fates for the third round of UEFA Champions League qualifying.
Ethan Horvath and Club Brugge have been paired against Ukrainian outfit Dinamo Kiev in next month’s qualifying round, while Sergino Dest and Ajax will meet PAOK of the Greek Super League.
The third round will get underway on Aug. 6th, once 12 winners have been decided in the second round which will see a pair of legs played on July 23-24 and 30-31.
Horvath starred for Brugge in last season’s European competitions, keeping a trio of clean sheets in group stage play of the Champions League. He picked up a win against Monaco while holding both Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid off the scoresheet.
Brugge eventually were eliminated from the Europa League but advanced farther than many expected. Horvath finished the season with 33 appearances in all competitions.
As for Ajax, they will try to advance just as far as last season. Including winning a domestic double in the Netherlands, Ajax reached the semifinals of the UCL before losing to Tottenham Hotspur.
Dest has impressed in preseason for Erik ten Hag’s side and could make the jump up to the first team this season.
He spent the entire 2018-19 season with Ajax II in the Dutch second tier, scoring one goal and adding one assist in 17 league appearances.
Why is Ajax playing in CL qualifying over the summer?
Despite being semifinalists last year, the Netherlands are not ranked high on FIFA’s allocation ranking so even though Ajax won the league title they arent guaranteed a spot directly in the group stage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_UEFA_Champions_League
I don’t see why Horvath hasn’t been called in for the national team for quite a while. Since he got his starting job back in Belgium he has been outstanding, based on results. I would prefer him to Sean, Ooops, another howler Johnson.
I believe the argument is that Johnson is better with his feet/passing and plays in a system that requires it, which GB also uses heavily in his system with the nats. I personally don’t think this is enough of a reason to go with a weaker shot stopper.
I believe he was injured this Summer. He played in March and was on the squad for each Fall window last year but only played once for Sarachan.