Only win over Spartak Moscow she was giving Laws promotion to the next round. The problem is that already in the 16th minute Mike Nawrocki made a fatal mistake. Legia’s stopwatch failed to withdraw to Artur Boruc, Zelimkhan Bakeav took the ball and put the ball in the net with a confident shot. The hosts could only equalize in the end. First, in the 84th minute, Tomas Pekhart scored the crossbar. And in stoppage time, the Czech was hooked by the defender of Spartak. The referee, after a very long analysis of the VAR, dictated a penalty kick.
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Legia – Spartak. A sad farewell to the Europa League
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Aleksandr Selikhov, however, sensed Pekhart’s intentions and saved the eleven. “The judge did not take away the first place from Spartak, although he awarded Legia with an incorrect penalty,” reports sport-express.ru. “The referee Matej Jug, after the intervention of the VAR judge and watching the replay, mistakenly punished Samuel Zhigo. Misfortune, because the defender of Spartak did not cause the Legia’s striker to fall” – we read in the article.
It was the key intervention of the match – if Legia had equalized, Spartak would have fallen to the 3rd place and played in the spring League Conference of Europe (first place would be Naples, and Leicester would overtake Spartak in terms of head-to-head matches).
The Russian website news.sportbox.ru, in turn, emphasizes that Spartak won, although he played the worst match in the group stage. – Spartak did not pose any threat after the break, he made mistakes in the game and left a lot of free zones. But they just survived – highlights the portal. – Paradoxically, Spartak won the decisive match, showing the worst style in the group stage. Even in the match in Moscow with the Polish club, he looked better, he created many more opportunities, he tried to control the ball – added in the summary of the match.
The coach of the Russians also referred to the match. – In the last minutes, I wanted to believe in justice. And so it happened. I wouldn’t say that the penalty was awarded fairly, but most importantly, he defended the penalty. This is the second eleven defended in three attempts, said Rui Vitória. And he added: – We presented ourselves great tactically. We played like a real team.
Legia Warsaw is eliminated from the Europa League
Thus, Legia has already said goodbye to European cups, taking the last place in group C, although it was the leader after the third round. And it seemed that it would be difficult not to leave the group in this situation.
In the second game of Group C, Napoli won 3-2 against Leicester. Thus, Spartak advanced to the play-offs from the 1st place in the group, just ahead of Napoli. Leicester will thus play in the Conference League this spring.
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