Cork City 0, Legia Warzaw 1
Turner’s Cross, Cork
Playing to a sold out Turner’s Cross-in Cork, the visiting Legionnaires delivered a valuable win on their first leg of this Champions League knockout rounds. John Caulfield and his Rebel Army are with their backs against the wall and a foe not considered as an easy enterprise.
This comes after today’s loss by 1-0 after a goal in the 79’ minute score by Michal Kucharcych who’s 30 yarder were enough to silenced a whole City colossus as well sentencing the series on Legia’s side and the second leg to play in Warsaw next Tuesday 17th .
As you recall the Military Boys were the ones that defeated the Lilywhites in 2016 but the Irish side managed to net a spot in the stage group of the Europa League and the Polish side making all the way to Champions.
For manager John Caulfield he is very aware that this was to be easy and easy series and foe he and his Boys are playing against, a win away in Warsaw will be an all-around achievement and a well-deserved move on to the next levels.
Still there is that match in municipal Stadium in Warsaw where the Poles stadium triples the likes of Turner’s Cross-with 31,000 attendance and with a very noisy crowd that can be the difference maker in the second leg.
Round one now in the books in this series, the return match in Poland is to see a much complete squad, after today’s match Legia did not had the majority of its stellar players making the trip but come on the 17th, this can be a different story for City.
So far, not making the trip to Cork Legia’s absences were craotian international Domagoj Antolic, captain Miroslav Rodvic, Jaroslaw Niezgoda, Eduardo, Michal Pazdan, Artur Jedrzejcyk and newcomer striker Carlitos.
In addition, of these chaps not present the Legionnaires have one killer man in it midfield in Sebastian Szymanski a player that can be a handful to the City defense for his prime play and catching the interest of Liverpool Jürgen Kloop.
However, the Rebel Army is one fighting machine and never quits despite having some players in the DL, as these Leesiders can be up and ready next week in Poland to try to make a stand and return with a positive result in their favor.
After all twelve years ago Cork City had a successful trek in these competitions with defeat over Apollon Limassol of Cyprus to later lose to Serbian Champions Red Star Begrade and the end of their fairy tale.
For this match manager Caulfield sent a very attacking prone 4-3-3 formation versus his Legia counterpart Dean Klafuric 3-5-2 with more of both with a couple of strikers up front and a brick wall in the midfield. As this formation worked wonders for the Polish side despite several opportunities that the Irish league defending champions had all afternoon long.
Despite the underdogs tag Cork City comes to this competition, still these can pull something as the new rules in the Europa league knockout rounds favor the Leesiders greatly, now for them is to take advantage of the opportunity.
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