Claudio Ranieri's troubled first year back at Valencia took a disastrous turn last night as the Uefa Cup holders and Spanish champions were eliminated from this year's competition by Steaua Bucharest in a penalty shootout last night. Steaua, trailing 2-0 from the first leg in Spain, levelled the tie with two second-half goals from the midfielder Andrei Cristea.
The crucial miss in the shootout by the Italian Marco Di Vaio handed the Romanians a 4-3 victory to increase the pressure on Ranieri.
Another former Chelsea manager, Ruud Gullit, also had a night to forget as Feyernoord lost 4-2 on aggregate to Sporting Lisbon in a tie which was halted for 20 minutes in the second half when Sporting's Rui Jorge was hit by an object thrown from the crowd.
The referee, Florian Meyer, took the players off the pitch after the incident, which followed Liedson's 63rd-minute goal to put Sporting 1-0 ahead. The match had already been stopped for five minutes in the first half when the Sporting keeper Ricardo was hit by a firework.
In a dreadful night for Dutch football, Ajax followed Heerenveen and Feyernoord out of the cup with a 3-1 defeat to Auxerre.
