UEFA Conference League REVIEW 27 Aug 2026: Rangers, Hibernian and Motherwell all go out on the same night

Rangers lost to Jablonec on penalties, and Derek McInnes did not look for anywhere to hide. Vakhtang Chanturishvili scored on 73 to level the tie, the shootout went 4-3 to the Czech side and Jan Chramosta settled it. "It's such a low point," McInnes said. "I'm embarrassed with the result. I'm not going to sit here and make any excuses whatsoever. But the responsibility is mine to make sure that we are better than what we served up tonight. And we were miles short, miles short." It leaves Rangers without European football for the first time since 2017.

Hibernian lost 2-3 to Gent having led with fourteen minutes left. Josue Vergara put the visitors ahead on 39, Jason Kerr equalised on 56 and Felix Passlack turned it round on 77 before Christian Burgess levelled on 84 and, in stoppage time, Miguel Chaiwa turned the ball into his own net and was sent off in the same minute. David Gray refused to hang it on him: "It's really hard to put into words, in terms of the feeling in the group. It hurts, it's going to sting," he said, and of Chaiwa, that he "covered every blade of grass". Motherwell went out 1-4 at Freiburg, and again with ten men. Derry Scherhant scored inside six minutes, Emmanuel Longelo levelled on 22, and when Jake Girdwood-Reich was sent off on 57 the game left them: Igor Matanovic scored on 60, Cyriaque Irie on 63 and Keisuke Goto on 85. "Eleven versus eleven, we fight for 60 minutes, and we compete really, really well," Alfred Johansson said.

Five ties needed extra time, and four of them turned late. Larne were two up from Gibraltar and lost 0-3 at home to Lincoln Red Imps, Kike Gomez scoring on 82, Manu Toledano on 84, Montel Gibson sent off on 87 and Toledano converting a penalty in the last minute of extra time. Twente won 4-1 at Qarabag after Kady Borges had put the hosts ahead on 59, Marko Pjaca and Max Bruns levelling it in the last eleven minutes of normal time and Wout Weghorst, jeered off in the first leg, scoring on 94 before Younes Taha added a fourth. Panathinaikos beat Hradec Kralove 2-1, Cyriel Dessers scoring on 72 and again from the spot on 120 after Vladimir Darida had forced extra time on 90. Hajduk Split won 3-2 at Rakow, Raci scoring inside a minute and Rokas Pukstas on 94, either side of a Diaby-Fadiga penalty and Mahir Emreli's goal on 88. And Pafos beat Dinamo Tirana 4-2, Quina and Anderson Silva scoring in the last five minutes of extra time.

Inter Club d'Escaldes drew 0-0 with Drita and won the shootout, Faysal Chouaib scoring the kick that made them the first Andorran club to reach a league phase in any UEFA competition. Riga FC, who the fixture list still calls by their merged original name, beat Klaksvik 2-1 through Reginaldo Ramires on 47 and Oulad M'Hand on 89, with Pall Klettskard's equaliser in between and Salazar sent off on 75. Borac Banja Luka beat Vikingur Reykjavik 3-1, Herrera, Juricic and Djajic scoring after an own goal had opened it. Partizan beat Getafe 2-1 through Jeh on 53 and Kojzek on 76, Enes Unal's goal on 69 proving enough to take Getafe through on aggregate. Maccabi Tel Aviv drew 1-1 with Lugano, who played from 58 with ten men after Mattia Zanotti's dismissal, Peretz scoring a penalty on 69 and Dereck Moncada levelling on 79 to send Lugano on. Austria Vienna and Braga finished goalless, which was enough for Braga.

The rest were more straightforward. Brighton beat Tromso 4-0, Charalampos Kostoulas on 22, Maxim De Cuyper on 33, Mats Wieffer on 38 and Olivier Boscagli on 86. Ajax beat Sion 5-3 in a match that had eight goals and a hat-trick on the losing side, Winsley Boteli scoring on 18, 36 and 90 while Youri Baas struck inside a minute, Davy Klaassen on 39, Tolu Arokodare on 45 and 51 and Oliver Edvardsen on 54. Monaco beat Gornik Zabrze 4-1 through Paris Brunner, Mamadou Coulibaly, Aleksandr Golovin and Mika Biereth. Copenhagen beat Inter Turku 4-1, Midtjylland won 4-1 at Rijeka after Daniel Adu Adjei had scored for the hosts inside four minutes, and Nordsjaelland won 3-2 at St. Gallen, who had Stevanovic sent off on 39 with the game level. Atalanta won 1-0 at Hapoel Tel Aviv, Gianluca Scamacca scoring on 72 moments after coming on.

Brann beat PAOK 3-2 with a penalty on 86 that PAOK disputed at length. Noah Holm and Kristall Mani Ingason had put Brann two up before Cherif Ndiaye and Christos Zafeiris levelled it. "For me it is a penalty," Eirik Horneland said. "He kicks me on the foot and there is not much I can do." And KuPS beat Shamrock Rovers 1-0, the only goal an own goal on 75 minutes, which Stephen Bradley took as the story of the whole campaign: "As a group, we've given up too many soft goals in our European campaign, and ultimately it's cost us." He added that it is "usually a team that is starting out on their European journey that makes mistakes like that, not a team that has played in a lot of big games in Europe."