Marin’s free-kick was the only goal, and LASK’s first Champions League night ended with a header over the bar
LASK reached the Champions League by overturning a four-goal aggregate deficit against Celtic. Their first match in the competition ended with Kalajdzic heading over in the 92nd minute.
Sep 9, 2026
Răzvan Marin hit a free-kick from around 20 yards in the 21st minute at the Allwyn Arena, and nothing else went in. AEK Athens beat LASK 1-0 on the opening night of the 2026-27 Champions League league phase, which is not a scoreline anyone will remember for the football. It is worth remembering for who was on the other side of it.
LASK had never played in the Champions League before Tuesday. The club from Linz won the Austrian Bundesliga last season for the first time in 61 years, then went to Celtic Park in the play-off round on 19 August and lost 3-0. Six days later, in the return leg in Linz, Callum McGregor scored early to put Celtic 4-0 up on aggregate. LASK won that match 5-1 after extra time and went through 5-4.
One free-kick, and then 69 minutes of holding on
Marko Nikolić set AEK up in a 4-4-2 with Luka Jović and Varga in front of Marin, and Lukas Jungwirth saved from Jović early on. Then Marin stood over a free-kick around 20 yards out, put it high past Jungwirth, and AEK led.
They did not add to it. Dietmar Kühbauer’s side set up in a 3-1-4-2 and spent the second half getting closer without arriving, and AEK’s best sight of a second fell to Aboubakary Koïta in the 89th minute on a fast break. He put it high and wide of the right post.
Jović scored, and then he did not
The one moment that should have settled it came in the 65th minute. Jović finished, the crowd celebrated, and the goal was cancelled after a VAR check found Lovro Majer offside in the build-up. Jović had already been in the referee’s ear five minutes before half-time, and he was withdrawn on 82 without a goal that counted.
Luís Godinho, the referee, gave three minutes at the end. LASK used almost all of them.
A header in the 92nd, and the man who was not there to meet it
Kühbauer had sent Saša Kalajdžić on for Christoph Lang in the 74th minute, which is the substitution you make when you want someone to attack a cross. In the 92nd, LASK won a corner, Alberto Brignoli came and did not get there, and Kalajdžić got his head to it in the centre of the box. It went just over the bar.
The player LASK would have wanted on the end of that ball was watching. Samuel Adeniran scored the extra-time goal in Linz that beat Celtic and put this club in the Champions League for the first time, and he is out recovering from a broken cheekbone. He also had a penalty saved by Viljami Sinisalo in the same match, six minutes after scoring the winner, which tells you something about the sort of night it was.
Two clubs a long way from where they were
AEK’s recent European record does not read like a club that belongs in this competition either. In 2018-19 they were drawn in a group with Bayern Munich, Benfica and Ajax and lost all six matches. Last season they were in the Conference League, where they reached the quarter-finals and went out to Rayo Vallecano. Before that, in 2006-07, they beat Milan 1-0 at home and finished third in their group, which is still their best Champions League campaign.
Now there are 36 teams in one table and eight matches each, and AEK have three points from the first of them. LASK have none, and the fixtures do not get kinder: Real Madrid away and Liverpool at home are both still to come. The league phase runs until 27 January.
Nikolić will take the win and think very little of the performance. Kühbauer will look at 92 minutes, one free-kick and a header that cleared the bar, and know his side were closer to a point in their first Champions League match than the table suggests. Neither of those readings is wrong. That is roughly what the new format was built to produce.