ROMA had a night to forget at the Stadio Olimpico as they missed three penalties in five minutes on their way to a 1-0 loss in the Europa League.
The Italian giants were chasing a goal deficit against Lille thanks to an early opener from Icelandic youngster Hakon Arnar Haraldsson.
TNT SportsRoma saw three penalties saved in less than five minutes[/caption]
TNT SportsEven a change of taker could not help the home side[/caption]
ReutersBerke Ozer was the hero for Lille[/caption]
After a goalless slog for the next 72 minutes of football, the break finally came for Roma thanks to an Aissa Mandi handball in the box in the 80th minute.
Forward Artem Dovbyk, recently substituted on for former Brighton star Evan Ferguson, stepped up to take the resulting penalty, but his low and right effort was comfortably saved by keeper Berke Ozer.
Former Southampton man Romain Perraud darted in to boot the rebound out for a corner, igniting fierce celebrations from the visitors in front of a downtrodden Dovbyk.
But VAR would come to the rescue of Gian Piero Gasperini’s side, ruling that Perraud had encroached in the area and that the penalty must be taken again.
Dovbyk stepped up again to take the penalty, now in the 84th minute, but hit an even worse penalty, once again low and right but with less venom than his first strike carried.
The refereeing team took less time to save his blushes this time, however, as they quickly flagged that Ozer was well off his line by the time the ball was struck.
After two missed attempts, it is unsurprising that the penalty duties were taken away from Dovbyk and handed instead to winger Matias Soule.
With a new taker came a new approach, but ultimately the same result.
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Shutterstock EditorialUkrainian Dovbyk was distraught after his second miss[/caption]
Soule mixed it up by sending his penalty low and left, but Ozer was equal to it and made the stop in the 85th minute, marking three penalty saves for the Turk in almost as many minutes.
Lille would see out their heroic defense of their lead for a 1-0 win, pushing them up to sixth in the Europa League group phase.
The result was out of character for a Roma side that have got off to a blinding start to the season in Serie A, winning four of a possible five so far.
They also won their only other Europa League appearance so far, beating Sir Jim Ratcliffe‘s Nice side 2-1 last week.
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