Kanga helped Haifa to the Champions League by losing the ball, then didn’t want to substitute

Crvena Zvezda Belgrade failed to make it through Tuesday’s Champions League playoff rematch, with ex-Spartan Guelor Kanga playing a starring role. He lost the ball before the goal at 1::2, didn’t want to make a substitution, and the Serbian champion was one goal short of extra time.

The match as a whole did not go well for Kanga. First, he could have sent his team into the lead in the 11th minute, but he only hit the bar from outside the box. Crvena Zvezda still led 2:0 in the first half, which was enough to advance. In Israel a week ago, they lost 2:3.

Then VAR revealed a hand in the home team’s penalty area and the head referee awarded a penalty. Dolev Haziza missed it and Kanga tried to pull off a fast break. However, he lost the ball in midfield and Daniel Sundgren from long range in the fourth minute of stoppage time reduced it to 1: 2 in Haifa’s view.

In the 54th minute, the cameras picked out the face of Kanga holding his head. After a while it became clear that the Gabon international was substituting, which surprised him. What’s more, he was angry, he didn’t want to leave the field of play.

Without Kanga, Zvezda failed to score a promotion goal, on the contrary, they lost the extra time in the 90th minute. A Maccabi centre from a free direct kick was placed into his own net by defender Milan Pavkov.

Kanga and the whole Crvena Zvezda will therefore not play in the Champions League. He will go to the Europa League, probably to the second basket. Maccabi, on the other hand, is heading to the elite after 13 years, of course, to the fourth basket.

Source: UEFA