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Roger Ibañez after his winning goal for Roma
Photo: Peter Dejong / AP
A gross blunder in the defense of the guests and a wonderful combination of Davy Klaassen and Dusan Tadic brought the first goal in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals between Ajax and AS Roma.
Gianluca Mancini had not countered a back pass, so Klaasen could run towards the goal of the guests.
He played right out to Tadic, who carefully fitted back - Klaassen, who played for Werder Bremen between 2018 and 2020, only had to insert (39th minute).
Two minutes later, Antony almost made it 2-0, but Roma goalkeeper Pau López reacted brilliantly (41st).
Ajax started furiously in the second half and could have scored the next goal in the 53rd minute: Tadic missed a penalty with a weak shot in the middle of the goal.
Previously, he had converted all of his 17 penalties in the Ajax shirt.
On the other side, Kjell Scherpen failed: The replacement for the injured Maarten Stekelenburg let a harmless free kick by Lorenzo Pellegrini slip through his hands into the goal (57th).
Despite numerous opportunities, Ajax failed to score the winning goal - and it got worse: Klaassen involuntarily extended a corner of the Romans to Roger Ibañez, who took the ball with his chest and chased it under the crossbar from ten meters (87th).
A dream goal to end a spectacular game.
By 1: 2 Ajax missed the eleventh home win in the European Cup in a row.
According to this result, Roma will go into the second leg next Thursday (9 p.m., live ticker: SPIEGEL.de) with an advantage and not only fight for their own progress, but also to prevent a debacle for Serie A: You are the last remaining Italian club in Champions and Europa League.
Manchester United have a good chance of reaching the semi-finals in the Europa League.
The English record champions won the quarter-final first leg at Granada CF 2-0 (1-0).
Marcus Rashford completed a counterattack in the 31st minute after a perfect ball acceptance to the opening goal, Bruno Fernandes (90.) increased shortly before the end with a foul penalty.
For Granada, who played in the second division two years ago, it is the first quarter-finals in a European competition.
League rivals FC Arsenal with Bernd Leno in goal, on the other hand, only scored 1-1 (0-0) against Slavia Prague at home.
Alexandre Lacazette first flicked the ball against the crossbar alone in front of the goal (62nd), Nicolas Pepé made it better for the Londoners in the 86th minute.
But after Leno was still able to prevent the equalizer, he was powerless against Tomas Holes (90 + 4) in stoppage time.
FC Villarreal, on the other hand, can hope to reach the semi-finals after the 1-0 (1-0) at Dinamo Zagreb.
Gerard Moreno (44.) converted a hand penalty into the only goal for the team of coach Unai Emery, who has already won the competition three times with Sevilla FC.
mfu / dpa
