The New Saints 1 : 3 Legia Warszawa - TNS face uphill task

Posted Thursday, July 18, 2013 by PA

The New Saints face a tough task to reach the third qualifying round of the Champions League after they lost 3-1 to Polish champions Legia Warsaw at Wrexham.

A year on from their draw with Swedish champions Helsingborgs they could not pull off a repeat of that memorable evening and their 15th European campaign could well come to an end next week in Poland.

Legia were inches away from taking the lead when Marek Saganowski hit the woodwork with less than 10 minutes gone.

However, TNS took a surprise lead two minutes later when Ryan Fraughan scored and they almost doubled their lead four minutes before the break when Alex Darlington hit the woodwork.

However, the second half was only two minutes old when Legia levelled through Michal Kucharczyk.The Polish side then went ahead 10 minutes later through former Southampton striker Saganowski and they went on to dominate.

Jakub Kosecki had a shot blocked and the Poles forced a series of corners before Michael Wilde missed an opportunity to equalise with a little more than a quarter of an hour remaining.

They were made to pay for that when Kosecki scored Legia's third goal a minute later and Kucharczyk squandered a good chance in injury time.