UEFA Champions League Match Review: Anderlecht versus Partizan Belgrade
Anderlecht faced Partizan in the second leg of their qualification play-off tie at the Constant Vanden Stock stadium in Belgium. The referee for this match was Craig Alexander Thomson. Anderlecht started the match with a 4-4-2 formation with two strikers upfront. The Belgian club side deployed Boussoufa and Lukaku as their strikers with p***k, Biglia, Suarez and Kouyaté in midfield. At the back, Anderlecht’s defence included the likes of Gillet, Juhasz, Mazuch and Deschacht. In goal, the Belgian club football giants had Proto as their shot stopper.
On the other hand, Partizan also retained their 4-4-2 setup with Iliev and Cleo in attack as their two strikers. In central midfield, Sasa Ilić and Petrovic ran the show while on the wings Smiljanic and Tomic took up their usual spots. In defence, Stevanović, Jovanović, Lazevski and Krstajić played as Partizan’s back four. Radisa Ilić played for Partizan as their goal keeper in between the posts behind the defence.
The first leg which was held in Serbia was concluded with a two all draw after ninety minutes of play. Therefore Anderlecht had an advantage going into the second leg because of the two away goals that they had managed to obtain in the first leg. Conversely their opponents, Partizan were on the back foot as they had a tough job on their hand of scoring vital away goals if they had to keep their chances of progression alive for the group stages of the tournament.
Surprisingly, Partizan started the match with a bang as they almost took the lead in the 6th minute of the match through Mladen Krstajić but the defender was denied by Anderlecht’s goalkeeper, Silvio Proto. The first booking of the match also took place in the 6th minute as Radosav Petrovic of Partizan Belgrade was booked by the referee. Soon Belgrade made their dominance count as in the 15th minute of the match, Ivica Iliev took a corner and from the ensuing kick Cleo opened the scoring for Partizan. In doing so, Partizan gained control of the match as a score line of one nil guaranteed their advancement to the group stages of the UEFA Champions League.
In the 19th minute of the match, Partizan made their first substitution as Aleksandar Davidov replaced an injured Sasa Ilić. Kouyaté from Anderlecht was the second player to get booked on the night in the 25th minute of the match. The match turned ugly towards the end of the first half as Ivan Stevanović of Partizan Belgrade was booked in the 45th minute of the match by the referee. At the end of the first half, Partizan were in lead by a goal to nil but Anderlecht were trying their best to somehow find an equalizing goal which would get them back into the match.
Right after the start of the second half, Aleksandar Davidov was booked by the match referee in the 51st minute of the match. Before him, his team mate Marko Jovanović also got booked as the referee showed him a yellow card in the 49th minute of the match. Anderlecht started keeping possession expertly from the start of the second half and this instilled higher levels of frustrations inside the Partizan Belgrade players.
With a lot of the Partizan players booked, the Serbian club ran the risk of getting one of them sent off sooner rather than later. However, Partizan broke beautifully in the 53rd minute of the match to virtually seal their place in the group stages of the competition as their striker Cleo extended Belgrade’s lead to two goals after finishing off the pass from Davidov. Nonetheless, Anderlecht came back into the match with a strike from their centre forward Romelo Lukaku after he was played in by p***k in the 64th minute of the second half.
In the 65th minute, Krstajić was booked by the referee due to his unsporting behavior. In an astonishing turn of events, Anderlecht fought their way back to level terms as Gillet equalized for the Belgian club side after he was given a superb pass from Biglia. With the score line at two all, both the teams were tied on aggregate goals.
Till the end of the ninety minutes both the teams tried to break each other down but none ventured too far forward because both the managers were well aware of each others counter attacking capabilities. Even in the first half of extra time, neither Partizan nor Anderlecht succeeded in scoring a goal. Despite some good chances for both the sides in the second half of extra time, the score line was still all level at two goals each. Therefore, the second leg of the play-off encounter went to a penalty shootout during which the first penalty shootout was converted by Cleo of Partizan Belgrade for his team.
The second penalty was taken by Suarez for Anderlecht but he failed to score from the spot. Partizan failed to convert their second penalty while Anderlecht were unsuccessful with their second as well. However, Partizan gained the advantage as they scored with their third and Anderlecht were also successful with their third spot kick of the night. Belgrade botched their fourth penalty whereas Anderlecht scored from their fourth penalty kick.
Stankovic scored with Partizan’s fifth penalty kick but Boussoufa failed to convert Anderlecht’s final penalty. Therefore Partizan Belgrade won the match in the end on penalties and progressed to group stages of the UEFA Champions League.
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