Legia Warsaw 1 St Patrick's Athletic 1 St Patrick's Athletic left Legia Warsaw bewildered in Poland last night as the Inchicore side defied the odds both on and off the pitch to record one their best away displays in Europe.
Ahead of next week’s second leg at Tallaght Stadium, Christy Fagan’s first-half goal looked to have Liam Buckley’s side well positioned to knock out a club with infinitely greater resources – before the heartbreaking concession of a stoppage time equaliser.
Despite the magnificence of the performance, perspective had come earlier in the day with the desperately sad news that an English-based St Patrick’s fan had been found dead in his Warsaw hotel room.
While Legia started eight full internationals, Buckley, as expected, set his side up to counter their formation directly, starting with Greg Bolger paired with Keith Fahey as a midfield defensive shield in front of the back four.
Buckley spoke in the build-up of it being essential his side kept the ball when they had it being key to taking anything back to Dublin.
And while they saw very little of it early on, they were tight on Legia when the Poles came at them and excellent on the counterattack as they troubled their opponents any time they got forward.
Frustrated opposition
Having frustrated Legia, who lost Portuguese striker Orlando Sa to injury on 17 minutes, St Patrick’s grew in confidence.
Killian Brennan collected skipper Ger O'Brien's free-kick to beat his man inside and bring a terrific tip save from Dusan Kuciak on 38 minutes.
A minute later, Chris Forrester’s cheeky flick with his back to goal from Ian Bermingham’s cross was straight at the home goalkeeper.
Legia continued to struggle to cause St Patrick’s any real problems despite their possession.
The visitors then enjoyed a purple patch in which they might have scored three times, instead having to settle for a 38th-minute lead.
First Forrester brought a back-tracking bat away from Kuciak with a 40-yard chip following the goalkeeper’s poor clearance.
Fahey then put Bermingham away on the overlap and his low cross was turned in from close range by Fagan.
It might have got far better four minutes later. Having worked a one-two with Brennan, Kuciak got a strong touch to partially stop Fagan’s low shot with Inaki Astiz clearing the loose ball as Legia’s fans’ chanting turned to whistles.
Legia chance
Legia came within inches of levelling in first-half stoppage time, though, as Helio Pinto’s free-kick came back off the bar as the home side protested that Clarke was only booked for taking down substitute
Marek Saganowski
on the edge of the area.
It got little better for much of the second half for the increasingly frustrated Legia as they again enjoyed the possession but struggled to create openings. Their first of the half didn’t come until 79 minutes. Tomasz Bryzski’s low cross looked to have set up Saganowski to equalise. His shot, though, was brilliantly cleared by Clarke with his legs.
But in a final twist, Clarke was beaten in the first minute of added time. Ondrej Duda put Miroslav Radovic through on the right and he drilled a shot through the legs of Clarke. LEGIA WARSAW: Kuciak; Broz, Rzezniczak, Astiz, Brzyski; Jodlowiec, Pinto (Vrdoljak, 66); Zyro, Radovic, Kosecki (Duda, 77); Sa (Saganowski, 17). ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Clarke; O'Brien, Oman, Browne, Bermingham; Fahey, Bolger; Byrne, Brennan (Chambers, 76), Forrester (Quigley, 49); Fagan (Lynch, 85). Referee: Marius Avram (Romania).
