Five minutes into what was supposed to be a triumphant return to European football, Hapoel Tel Aviv's Conference League opener against Ludogorets Razgrad was brought to a halt on Thursday evening, after smoke from flares lit by the club's own supporters drifted across the pitch and forced the referee to stop play, ONE reported.
Swiss referee Alessandro Dudic suspended the match as the haze thickened around the edge of the box, according to ONE, and did not allow it to restart until the smoke had cleared roughly five minutes later.
The stoppage came on a night that was meant to be a celebration in its own right. It was Hapoel's first fixture in continental competition in 12 years, ending a long absence from Europe for one of Israel's most storied clubs.
There was never any prospect of it feeling like a true home game, though. With Israeli clubs currently unable to host European matches on home soil for security reasons, Hapoel's nominal "home" leg was staged instead at the Diósgyőri Stadion in Miskolc, in northeastern Hungary.
That did not stop the travelling support from turning out in force. ONE reported that roughly 30 buses carried thousands of Hapoel fans on the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Budapest to Miskolc for kickoff.
It was that same travelling crowd that produced the pyrotechnics which brought the game to a standstill — a recurring flashpoint at European away days involving Israeli supporters, and one that now leaves the club exposed to possible disciplinary proceedings from UEFA over the use of flares and smoke grenades inside the stadium, per ONE's report.
The match is the first leg of a second qualifying round tie in the Conference League. Ludogorets, the dominant force in Bulgarian football for well over a decade, will host the return fixture on July 30 at their own ground in Razgrad.
A full-time result was not yet confirmed at the time of writing. This report covers the confirmed details of the flare-related stoppage as reported by ONE, rather than the eventual outcome of the tie's opening leg.
