A lion-hearted performance was not enough for Floriana to clinch an historic berth in the play-off round of the Europa League as the Malta champions suffered a heart-breaking penalty shoot-out defeat to Flora Tallinn in the third qualifying round of the Europa League.
Floriana put on an impressive performance against a Flora Tallinn side who were much more-quoted than the Malta champions.
In fact, Vincenzo Potenza’s men after a cautious first half, took the game off their opponents and inspired by the constant running of their forwards Kristijan Keqi, Thiago Fonseca and Mathias Garcia carved out the best chances and could feel unlucky not to have found the winner after the 90 minutes.
However, neither side managed to find the breakthrough and the match was decided by a penalty-shoot-out. Here, the Estonians showed superior mental strength as they converted four of the five penalties taken, while Floriana missed twice through Kristijan Keqi and Diego Venancio.