Europa Conference League: Linfield and Derry City suffer agonising defeats in Europe

After a disappointing first leg in Gibraltar last week, Derry began brightly and top- scorer Hoban met the returning Michael Duffy’s cross from the left but couldn’t keep his header down.

The hosts stayed on top without doing enough to test former Glentoran keeper Dayle Coleing in the Magpies’ goal and on 25 minutes they were nearly caught out against the run of play. Kevagn Ronco dug out a cross from the right that was glanced on by Javi Forjan and struck the outside of Brian Maher’s near post.

Hoban had the ball in the net on the half hour mark with a trademark header which he crashed in off the inside of the post, but Andorran official Antoine Chiaramonti ruled it out for an apparent foul on Ruben Diaz.

The Candystripes finally opened the scoring on 38 minutes when Connolly rose to meet Duffy’s corner and buried it into the bottom corner.

However, right on half-time City were reduced to 10 when O’Reilly, picked up a second yellow for a dive after going down in the box under a challenge from Jean-Carlos Garcia.

O’Reilly was adamant he was clipped but the referee disagreed and his dismissal meant Ruaidhri Higgins’ side would have to play the second half a man down.

Derry did not come out in the second half like a team reduced to 10 men as they immediately went on the attack. McMullan had an effort from a narrow angle saved less than a minute after the restart, while Hoban couldn’t apply the finish to his cutback.

The pressure paid off just before the hour mark from another corner when Hoban met Ben Doherty’s delivery. His initial header was blocked on the line by his team-mate Will Patching but the Derry number nine reacted fastest to bury the rebound.

Derry kept pushing but almost were caught out when Olatunde Bayode rounded Maher and his cross found Eduardo Salles, but the Brazilian blazed over from six yards. McMullan also missed a late chance to seal the comeback so extra-time was needed to separate the sides.

Out of nowhere in the 111th minute, Juanje’s 30-yard effort came crashing off the bar and De Haro was quicker than the home defence to react and buried the rebound past Brian Maher.

Patching had an overhead kick headed off the line but Derry were unable to find a leveller which would have taken the game to penalty kicks.