Dusan Tadic missed a penalty kick on Thursday evening in the quarter finals of the Europa League between Ajax and AS Roma. The Serbian captain of the team from Amsterdam shot the ball straight through the middle of the goal and goalkeeper Pau López had taken this into account. The goalkeeper of the Romans had studied Tadic’s penalties prior to the meeting with Ajax.
Tadic has been taking penalties at Ajax for years and that was reason enough for Lopez to study how the attacker usually does that. “I know that Tadic often shoots them in the middle”, the Spanish keeper said opposite afterwards Sky Italia. “I always watch pictures of penalties with our goalkeeper coach Marco Savorani. This time I stopped and I was lucky. ” Shortly after Tadic’s miss, Lorenzo Pellegrini drew the equalizer from a free kick. Roma eventually went home with a 1-2 victory in the bag due to a late goal from Roger Ibañez.
Tadic, who provided the assist to Davy Klaassen’s 1-0, agreed afterwards that the defeat ‘really hurts’. “I have to make the 2-0 myself. We got more chances and should have scored ”, the captain said opposite RTL7. “If you miss too many chances, like I did with that penalty, you will automatically get a goal against. This is a good lesson, we have to win there. And we have to do everything for that. ” Tadic said he didn’t expect the goalkeeper to stop. “I should have scored.”
Ibañez made a mistake in Klaassen’s 1-0, but made up for his defensive mistake by scoring the winning goal just before time. “I thank Pau for stopping the penalty and God for winning the game,” said the Brazilian defender. “It was a tough game, but we did well. We were under a lot of pressure and in the end I score a goal that I really enjoy. ”