Alavés 0 - Gaziantepspor (Tky) 0

Alavés: Herrera; Contra, Karmona, Téllez, Geli (Mario 50'); Astudillo, Desio, Pablo (Tomic 77'), Ibon Begoña; Jordi Cruyff (Magno 50'); Javi Moreno. 4-4-1-1.

Goals: None.

A disappointing debut for Alavés in European competitions, failing to score against a hardened Turkish side who were not taking prisoners. Julio Salinas was the guest of honour, the now retired striker taking the kick-off-of-honour, but fans were missing his ability in front of goal by the end of the match. Gaziantepspor were also making their debut in Europe, and they were the mirror image of Alavés, if a little harder on the tackles. With ferocious man-to-man marking, Jordi Cruyff was soon limping, and just after the interval he had to leave the field with an ankle injury. The game went from end to end with both sides getting chances, and whilst the home sides efforts were largely off target, the Turks were more accurate, and Herrera was called upon to save on three or four occasions. With the game coming to an end, Javi Moreno finally got away from his marker Korkmaz, but his header ricocheted off the crossbar. That was the closest the came, and they now have to get a result in Turkey. The game was watched by a disappointing 11,000 crowd, surprisingly one of the smallest in recent history. Those that did turn up were however wearing their new salmon coloured European team shirts which had the names of all the season ticket holders engraved on them. At least their marketing department were scoring goals.