- Gareth O'Reilly
- Wed, Jul 16 2014
With 90 minutes gone it appeared St Patrick's Athletic were on the brink of pulling off a European upset after a Christy Fagan first half goal. However it wasn't to be as a late injury time goal from Miroslav Radovic secured a share of the spoils for the Polish champions.
The game started slow and it took until the 25 minutes for either side to create a real chance of note.
The chance fell to Legia as Pats had a real let off at the back, Brendan Clarke left his goal line to punch clear a cross. However the keeper failed to get anywhere near the ball but luckily for him the ball was successfully scooped clear to safety.
Just seconds later down the other end, Killian Brennan cut in onto his left foot before smashing an effort towards the top corner that had Kuciak at full stretch in order to deny the current SSE Airtricity League Champions a shock lead.
Ten minutes later the game really came to life as Chris Forrester attempted to chip the ball over Kuciak after the goalkeeper had gifted the ball to the Pats attacker 30 yards out from goal.
Just one minute later the goal arrived for the Saints as Forrester played in Birmingham who in turn slid the ball across the box to Fagan. The lone front man simply tapped home to send the travelling Pats supporters into dream world.
Only three minutes later Fagan should have put the Inchicore men two in front as Brennan delivered an inch perfect through ball. The pass found Fagan who shot past the keeper only to see his effort cleared off the line at the last second.
Then in injury time of the first half Brendan Clarke was lucky to stay on the pitch after he fouled Saganowski on the edge of the box. Pinto then stepped up to cannon a free kick off the Irish keeper's bar with the shot stopper well beaten.
Pats struggled to continue where they left off from in the first half and ended up conceding a number of free kick's in dangerous positions with one of those set plays leading to Thomasz Brzyski curling an effort just wide of Clarke's goal frame.
Pats despite struggling for much of the second half almost went further in front with a well worked move on 78 minutes. Birmingham's ball in caused havoc with three efforts by Pats players failing to find their way past the back four of Legia.
Just two minutes later Rzezniczak played the ball along the ground to Saganowski who had the easiest of tasks to tap the ball into the net from 5 yards out. However by some miracle Clarke managed to save the shot with his dangling feet, although I'm not sure that the Saints number one knew too much about it.
Pats were so close to recording a famous victory over Legia Warsaw only for Miroslav Radovic to break through the defence in stoppage time to smash past Brendan Clarke and put a dampener on the Irish celebrations.
That was how it finished on a historic night for Irish football as the current SSE Airtricity League champions did the entire League of Ireland proud. The Saints should now have little to fear for the return leg in Tallaght Stadium.
Legia Warsaw: Dusan Kuciak, ?ukasz Bro?, Jakub Rze?niczak, Inaki Astiz, Tomasz Brzyski; Micha? ?yro, Tomasz Jod?owiec, Helio Pinto (Ivica Vrdoliak 65), Jakub Kosecki (Ondrej Duda 77); Miroslav Radovi?, Orlando Sa (Marek Saganowski 16).
Subs Not Used: Konrad Jalocha, Igor Lewczuk, Arkadiusz Piech, Adam Ryckowski
Yellow Cards: Ondrej Duda (90)
St Patrick's Athletic: Brendan Clarke, Ger O'Brien, Ken Oman, Kenny Browne, Ian Birmingham; Conan Byrne, Greg Bolger, Keith Fahey, Killian Brennan (James Chambers 76), Chris Forrester (Mark Quigley 49); Christy Fagan (Lee Lynch 84).
Subs Not Used: Rene Gilmartin, Derek Foran, Lorcan Fitzgerald, Daryl Kavanagh
Yellow Cards: Brendan Clarke (45+1), Ken Oman (46)
Referee: Marius Avram (Romania)
Attendance: 17,000 (estimate)
