Eight hours of pure playing time over two matches — and not a single goal. Kyiv's Dynamo under the leadership of Igor Kostyuk advanced to the second qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League in the most nerve-wracking way possible: through a penalty shootout against Romania's Universitatea Cluj.
How it happened
The return match in Cluj-Napoca, like the first encounter, ended 0:0 in regular time. After two additional halves that also failed to produce a winner, the matter came down to a penalty shootout. Dynamo players converted all four of their attempts — Yarmolenko, Brazhko, Ponomarenko, Lonwyk. The Romanians missed twice: Codrea failed to beat goalkeeper Neshcheret, Kipchu sent the ball over the bar. The final result of the series was 4:2 in favor of the Kyiv team.
Goalkeeper Georgy Neshcheret was the hero of the match, saving Codrea's penalty and psychologically breaking the opponent's sequence even before the second miss by Universitatea's captain.
"Calmly, the Kyiv players converted all four of their shots, but the opponents, through the efforts of Codrea and Kipchu, missed — and Kostyuk's team moves on to face the very inconvenient Greek PAOK."
Champion.com.ua, match review
Next opponent: PAOK — no easy task
Matches against Greek PAOK are scheduled for July 23 and 30. Dynamo will play the first match as the nominal home team, and the second — in Thessaloniki at the Toumba stadium.
PAOK is coached by Razvan Lucescu — son of the legendary Mircea Lucescu, well known in Ukrainian football. The Greek team's squad includes two players with direct links to Ukraine:
- Tomasz Kędziera — Polish defender who returned to Dynamo in the summer but now plays for the opponent;
- Tayson — Brazilian winger who spent years at Shakhtar.
PAOK reached the Conference League quarter-finals twice (2022, 2024) and twice made it to the Europa League playoff stage. In the 2025/26 season, the club finished third in the Greek championship.
Kyiv Dynamo legend Volodymyr Bezsonov called for not writing advance obituaries: "There's no need to fear anyone — neither Cluj nor PAOK". However, the football community is skeptical — two matches against a Romanian championship middleman without a single goal from open play adds fuel to the pessimists' fire.
If Dynamo fails to overcome PAOK, the club will move to the Conference League qualification — a lower-status tournament.
The question that will clarify everything: will Kostyuk's team finally open their account in the home match on July 23 and not let PAOK take control of the situation — then the second away match in Thessaloniki will take on a completely different meaning.
