The UEFA Conference League is the third tier of European club football after the more well-known Champions League and Europa League.

Flora had beaten NK Celje (Slovenia) and AC Virtus (San Marino) in the qualifiers, and managed an away draw against Víkingur in Reykjavik last Thursday.

However home field advantage at the A. Le Coq Arena Thursday night was not sufficient to stop them going down 2:1 on the night.

Manager Taavi Viik told ERR post-match: "We perhaps didn't start off at our best."

"In the start we lost a lot of duels and individual mistakes – from there this led to their two goals," Viik went on.

"Against an opponent like this, to come back from a two-goal deficit is no simple matter. Or this is where eluded us in the end," the manager added.

Víkingur, too, are domestic league champions and took the lead as early as the sixth minute, when midfielder Aron Elís Þrándarson headed in from a corner kick.

Flora's stiker Sergei Zenjov appeared to equalize for Flora in the 26th minute, but the goal was disallowed following a VAR review ruling him offside.

Ten minutes later, Danish striker Nikolaj Hansen doubled Vikingur's lead.

Early in the second half, midfielder Markus Soomets pulled one back for Flora, but the hosts were unable to build on that before full-time.

Vikingur are now just one round away from the Conference League group stage and will face Andorran champion UE Santa Coloma in the decisive playoff round.

Next up for Flora is a Meistriliiga match on Sunday against Nõmme United.

After 22 games, they are third in the domestic table, trailing leaders FCI Levadia by 19 points.

On this Viik said: "Everything starts with mentality. If we play with as we did in both games against Vikingur, with the same mindset, we can also in the home league achieve interesting things. Our ultimate goal is to finish as high up of a place as possible."

The 2024 season started in March and runs to November 9.

The original ERR Sport report on the game in Estonian is below.

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