Santa Clara earn narrow win over Partizan in Europa Conference League first leg

Santa Clara earned a 2-1 win over Partizan of Belgrade in their Europa Conference League playoff first leg encounter, giving themselves a slender advantage heading into the second outing in Serbia.

The result made it 5 wins out of 5 European fixtures for Santa Clara this season, who before tonight also beat Shkupi and Olimpija Ljubljana by a combined aggregate scoreline of 8-0.

Santa Clara opened the goalscoring very early on, with the usual suspect in Carlos Junior tapping home in the 4th minute, and doubled their advantage at the very start of the second half with Morito taking the ball down and finishing with great composure into the bottom corner.

Partizan did, however, manage to get a goal back 5 minutes later, becoming the first team to score against Santa Clara in this competition from a nicely worked set piece with Vujacic eventually heading home.

Santa Clara held on for the victory though, keeping their perfect start to this competition going, and are now just one match away from reaching the group stage of the Europa Conference League.