Petro’s Sherrif face Irish side in Europa

Flames defender Charles Petro is confident his Moldovan club Sherrif Tiraspol will today have an easy ride over Irish club Dundalk when they face-off in the Uefa Europa League third qualifying round.

The 2019 TNM Super League best defender said his team is ready to put home ground advantage to perfect use in the one-off tie.

The matcch will see winners taking on either Georgian club Dinamo Tbilisi or Faroe Island’s Klaksvik FC on October 1 in the play-off round, the last phase before the group stages.

“Winning today’s match will be a big step towards our mission of making it into the finals of Europa League.

“we have left no stone unturned to achieve this feat and playing at home gives us an edge,” said the former Nyasa Big Bullets defender, who was voted Sherrif’s player of the month for August.

His coach Zorak Zekic believes that although Dundalk are considered underdogs to prevail against Sheriff, who have reached the Europa League group stage on four occasions and have a multinational squad, they will not be mere pushovers.

He was quoted on www.herald.ie as saying that their opponents will punish them if they continue to be complacent as was the case in their previous league game.

“Dundalk are a serious team who have been together for a long time,” he explained.

“In Europe, they could punish the kind of mistakes we made in our last league game; we need to be focused and cut out the mistakes.”

Sherrif were relegated to the Uefa Europa League qualifiers following their 2-1 away loss to Azerbaijan side Qarabag in the Uefa Champions League second qualifying round.

The Europa final was originally scheduled to be played at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium in Seville, Spain.

However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the final will now be played at Stadion Energa Gdańsk in Gdańsk, Poland.