Football: The Premiership / Latvians humiliate Aberdeen

ABERDEEN suffered their most humiliating night in European football as they crashed out of the Uefa Cup to the unknown Latvians of Skonto Riga on the away goals rule after their preliminary round second leg at Pittodrie last night.

Skonto were smarting at being denied entry to the Champions' Cup, and they proved that football in the Baltic state is equal to what Scotland can produce.

The Aberdeen manager, Willie Miller, had to shoulder a major part of the responsibility after taking off the defender Brian Irvine in the 54th minute. Before the defence could reorganise, the 21- year-old Latvian international Alexei Semenov had whipped in the crucial away goal to leave Aberdeen having to score twice to win. They never looked capable of that.

The Skonto goalkeeper, Raimond Laizan, was eventually beaten in injury time when Paul Kane levelled the tie on the night, but that was too little too late.

In other second leg matches in the Uefa Cup preliminary round, Motherwell won 4-1 at HB Torshavn, of the Faroe Islands, after a 3-0 home win.

Gornik Zabrze, of Poland, also completed an 8-0 aggregate victory over Shamrock Rovers of Ireland, winning 1-0 in Dublin.

Rangers' burden, page 46