Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 11:13 am

John van den Brom failed to reach the second qualifying round of the Champions League with his Lech Poznan. After a 1-0 home win, which was booked last week, a visit to Qarabag FK in Azerbaijan went completely wrong: 5-1. Making it to the Conference League is still possible for Van den Brom and his followers.

Last week, the Dutch coach’s Lech Poznan, who signed a contract for two seasons in Poland last month, provided himself with an excellent starting position. Thanks to a goal by Mikael Ishak, Lech took a 1-0 lead to Azerbaijan and in Tuesday evening’s away game Van den Brom’s men even took the lead. After one minute, Kristoffer Velde scored an important goal, but the margin that had been obtained was given away before half-time.

Qarabag went into halftime with a 2-1 lead and ran all the way over Lech in the second half. The counter eventually stopped at five goals, with which the formation from Azerbaijan continues very convincingly to the second preliminary round in the Champions League and Van den Brom’s team gets a second chance in the Conference League. They enter there in the second preliminary round and will soon hear which club will be the opponent.

The elimination of Lech Poznan brought the team and Van den Brom himself to a lot of criticism in Poland. Thus wrote the leading onet about the ‘shame of Lech Poznan’ and believes that the adventure in the preliminary round of the billion-dollar ball has come to a disastrous end. Interia reports a ‘humiliation’ for Lech and says the goalkeeper’s own mistakes and blunders were the cause of the ‘shooting gallery’ in the defence. ‘A nightmare’, they conclude.

It makes it clear that the Dutch trainer has not started his employment in Poznan very well. He previously lost the final of the Polish Super Cup, but knows that from the fact that he saved many players to be able to score high in the Champions League preliminary round. Now that that has failed either, questions will be raised about Van den Brom’s choices.