A difficult task for Raków Częstochowa in the fight for the Champions League. They will face a titled team

Raków Częstochowa continues a beautiful journey in the fight for the Champions League. The team of Polish champions has already gone through three qualifying rounds, thanks to which they have secured a place in the group round of the Europa League. To reach the top tier of European cups, they will have to defeat a team that had to wait until the penalty shoot-out against Sparta Prague to advance. It was an extremely emotional spectacle, and the overtime will go down in history.

Raków Częstochowa met the rival in the 4th round of qualifying for the Champions League

After the first match in Copenhagen, the team whose mainstay is Kamil Grabara could feel unsatisfied. The match in front of their own audience ended in a goalless draw despite their decisive advantage in the number of shots fired. The rematch in the capital of the Czech Republic had a different course. The visitors took the lead very quickly, because in the first minute Jordan Larsson fired a shot from the edge of the penalty area, which ricocheted into the goal. The enraged hosts stormed Kamil Grabara’s goal, but they couldn’t find a way around it.

They had to wait until the second half to equalise. Ladislav Krejci gave a header with which the Polish goalkeeper had no chance. However, Prague’s joy did not last long, because after consulting VAR, the referee decided that there was an attack foul earlier, so he canceled the goal. They still had to do their job to the best of their ability to push through the defense of the well-prepared Danes. Their efforts paid off in the 80th minute when Veljko Birmancević fired a powerful shot from outside the penalty area and put the ball in the net. So we were tied 1-1 and after eight added minutes extra time was necessary.

Thriller in extra time and penalties

In the 105th minute of the match, the hosts put a lot of pressure on the visitors and it paid off, because Qazim Laci took a free kick and hit Kamil Grabara undefeatable. In the second part of extra time we had a real thriller, because first Prague were close to scoring another goal, but after a moment of distraction, Claesson scored for Copenhagen. The vision of penalty kicks was getting closer, but it wasn’t the end of shooting.

Two minutes later, there was confusion in the visitors’ penalty area, which was used by Victor Olatunji, who increased it to 3: 2 from close range. As if that wasn’t enough, in the 112th minute FC Copenhagen had a free-kick, after which Christian Sorensen crossed for the head of Victor Claesson, who scored a double. The meeting and the whole tie became clear only in a series of penalty kicks, from which the visitors came out on top and they will fight Raków Częstochowa for participation in the group stage of the Champions League.