FC Red Bull Salzburg surrendered a two goal lead and suffered their first defeat in this season’s UEFA Europa League, as they lost 3-2 to Standard Liege in the first leg of their last 32 clash in Belgium.
Red Bulls striker Marc Janko had given his side the advantage as early as the fourth minute and added a second just before half time, but a second half penalty and two goals in the last 10 minutes gave Liege a slender advantage going into the second leg.
Prior to this defeat, the Red Bulls had won their opening six matches in the Europa League and the loss was compounded by yellow cards for Christian Schwegler and Franz Schiemer, who will both miss next Thursday’s second leg at the Red Bull Arena.
The Belgian champions, who are currently in fourth place in their domestic league and 16 points off the pace, were stunned by Janko’s early strike, which came about as Sinan Bolat in the Liege goal was left exposed by a fine pass from Andreas Ulmer to Janko, who sidefooted the cross home.
Shortly aftwerwards, Red Bulls coach Huub Stevens opted to watch the rest of the match from the stands after an altercation with a UEFA official, who informed Stevens that he ought to be wearing a distinguishing bib if he wished to remain on the touchline.
'We have every chance of going through' – Huub Stevens
The coach had a perfect view of the Red Bulls second goal, which again came from the boot of the prolific Janko, who scored his fourth Europa League goal of the season following good work from Dušan Švento.
The game turned in favour of the hosts after 66 minutes when Franz Schiemer upended Moussa Traore in the box and Axel Witsel converted the penalty to pull one back.
Bolat's acrobatic save to deny Nikola Pokrivač proved to be pivotal with only 10 minutes remaining, when Igor De Camargo unleashed a fierce drive from 30 yards to level the scores.
The Standard Liege comeback was complete two minutes later when Witsel headed home Steven Defour's cross.
A frustrated but still bullish Stevens said: “We played very well for an hour, but lost the plot after they got a goal back. You can’t explain that – it happened but it’s really annoying. We missed a great chance to make it 3-0 as well. Despite all of that we have every chance of going through in the second leg.”
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