With this marking both sides’ first outing after lengthy respective winter breaks, there was little quality on show in the first half. Jakub Piotrowski fired over early, although Erick Marcus was his side’s dangerman, testing Jonas Lössl’s fingertips with a fierce drive as the HT whistle approached.
However, one moment before the break was worthy of applause, and it produced the opener. Around the 20-minute, a short corner was played into Darío Osorio, who took a touch to set himself before firing an effort into the top corner from 30 yards - it was headed for the back of the net as soon as it left his boot.
While Ludogorets’ play was tepid at best before the interval, they warmed up significantly at the start of the second period. In fact, Midtjylland had Lössl to thank for them still being ahead with around 30 minutes remaining as the goalkeeper first denied Marcus’ low drive before producing a fantastic stop to push Rwan Cruz’s header to safety.
In between those two efforts, Cruz glanced another header narrowly past the post from another enticing Marcus cross. In response, the visitors almost gave themselves extra breathing space when substitute Edward Chilufya was found unmarked at the back post by fellow replacement Mikel Gogorza’s header, but he could only hit the post from a tight angle.
Ludogorets dominated possession for the final half-hour as they went in search of an equaliser, but they lacked the initial post-HT threat and were unable to force Lössl into any other crucial saves.
Midtjylland, meanwhile, concentrated on defending their slender advantage and, in stoppage time, were rewarded for their strong defensive display when Valdemar Andreasen scored from his own half with Bonmann up the field for a corner.
Ultimately, Osorio’s wonder-strike was enough to secure the pointsuropa l
and see them close in on progression to the knockouts - the first time they will have done so in a European competition since 2015/16 if they get the job done. They face Fenerbahçe in their final league phase game next week, while Ludogorets will wrap up their sorry campaign at Olympique Lyonnais.