IVANAUSKAS BLAMES REF AFTER A HEARTS GREEK TRAGEDY

AEK Athens 2
Hearts 1

Four minutes after the Edinburgh club had taken a shock 61st-minute lead against the impressive Greeks through Saulius Mikoliunas in their third qualifying round first leg tie, the Danish official reduced the Gorgie side to 10 men when he sent off Bruno Aguiar.

The Portuguese midfielder, already booked for a foul in the first half, was shown his second yellow apparently for knocking away the ball after the home side had conceded a foul in the middle of the park.

The Tynecastle men had struggled to contain the Greeks for most of the match but after going a man down their luck eventually ran out as they conceded two late goals.

With a minute of normal time remaining Pantelis Kapetanos flicked a cross by substitute Stavros Tziortziopoulos past the helpless Craig Gordon before Christophe Berra deflected a shot from Nikolaos Lymperopoulos into his own net. The second leg in Athens in a fortnight looks a formidable task.

Ivanauskas said: "The sending off cost us the match. I understand what the first booking was for but there was no tackle when he was shown the second yellow, so can't understand that.

It wasn't easy after that. The players are angry about losing the goals in the last four minutes.

"We know what we have to do now to win the tie, we have to go there and win."

Taken from sportinglife.com