VARDY PULLS IT OUT THE BRAG
Jamie’s a Portuguese man of phwoar to put Leicester into the knockout stages
JAMIE VARDY sent the fighting Foxes into the knock-out stages with a last-gasp leveller.
Leicester’s hopes of clinching a last32 spot two games early looked wrecked when sub Fransergio put Braga 3-2 up in the 90th minute.
But Vardy had other ideas. The former England striker steamed in at the far post to ram home a Marc Albrighton cross in the fifth and final minute of stoppage time.
Brendan Rodgers had to bring his big guns – Vardy, James Maddison and Youri Tielemans – off the bench to get the job done. The Leicester boss said: “We were too slow in the first half and Braga were by far the better side.
“But once we changed things, we started to dominate. Bringing those boys on brought a different dynamic. They are highly gifted players who make a really big difference. We’re just delighted to go through but still hungry to go on and win the group.”
All the noises pre-match were that Braga, still stinging from the 4-0 defeat at the King Power, were on a revenge mission. And it certainly looked that way given how they started.
The Portuguese side took the lead after just four minutes when Ali Elmusrati fired a 20-yarder into the far corner. But they were rocked on their heels when Harvey Barnes equalised with a stinging angled drive in Leicester’s first real attack.
Braga re- grouped and, but for Kasper Schmeichel, could easily have gone in with a comfortable half-time lead rather than settling for 2-1.
The big Dane produced a number of crucial blocks but was powerless to stop Paulinho’s close-range strike after a neat exchange of passes.
The complexion of the game c changed when word filtered t through that AEK were losing a against Zorya Luhansk in the other g group game. That left The Foxes n needing just a point and, right on cue, c up popped Luke Thomas with what w promised to be the key goal, his first fi for the club, in the 78th minute.
It looked like the academy product would be the hero but they ended up having to call on master marksman Vardy to get the job done.