Our defending champion men’s soccer team took the field for the second leg of the UEFA Europa League round of 16 at a truly special venue, the Municipal Estádio de Braga, with the clear goal of maintaining our 2-0 home lead and continuing the spring cup run.

SC Braga, currently in fourth place in the Portuguese league, hosted our team six days after the match in Budapest. Robbie Keane had already reminded his players at the Groupama Arena that they would need to play with similar focus, as the opponent is a top-tier team capable of spectacular and fluid football.

For this match, the Irish manager could not count on the suspended Kristoffer Zachariassen; however, the team’s usual attacking style was replaced by a more defensive setup, so Júlio Romao moved into midfield in place of our Norwegian player, and our team lined up with the following starting lineup: Gróf – Cissé, Raemaekers, Gómez – Makreckis, Abu Fani, Júlio Romao, Kanikovszki, O'Dowda – Joseph, Yusuf.

First Half

After the morning rain, the sun came out just in time for kickoff, and it seemed to bother the home team’s goalkeeper more during the first half. Braga clearly came out on the attack, and in the sixth minute, Gabri Martínez closed in on Gróf, who managed to make the save, albeit with some difficulty. However, we were unable to get through the critical first fifteen minutes without conceding a goal; the defenders were caught out on a play down the right, and Victor Horta fired the ball into the middle past Gróf (1-0).

Barely four minutes had passed when the Portuguese scored again. Although the first attempt was cleared, the ball had just left the penalty area when Grillitsch arrived, and his long-range shot found the bottom right corner off Gróf (2-0).

It was back to square one, with the aggregate score at 2-2. Braga kept up the momentum, with Carlos Vincens’s team dominating the field; Horta tried again, but Gróf won that battle. However, we didn’t have much to celebrate; Cissé kept the opposing striker in play with poor positioning, so instead of an offside call, the third Portuguese goal came, this time scored by Gabri Martínez (3-0). With that, Braga was now on the verge of advancing.

Second Half

We didn’t make any substitutions at halftime, and neither did our opponents. Ricardo Horta quickly got the home fans on their feet, extending the lead to four with a thunderous strike (4-0). It says a lot about the nature of the match that we had to wait until the 56th minute for our first shot on goal. We were unable to break through the home team’s defense in the final 30 minutes either, as they did not allow our attackers to get into the game.

With a 4-0 home victory, Portugal’s Braga advanced to the Europa League quarterfinals with a 4-2 aggregate score.

Ferencváros will next take the field in a league match in Kisvárda on March 22 at 7:15 p.m.