Scoutmania

A. Le Coq Arena (Tallinn, Estonia). Guest team FK RFS won the 1st leg in the 2025/2026 UEFA Champions League First qualifying round against FCI Levadia Tallinn – by the final score 0-1.

Estonian Meistriliiga 2024 champions FCI Levadia Tallinn faced the previous year’s Latvian Virslīga winners FK RFS – the team that participated in the league phase of the 2024/25 UEFA Europa League campaign, and achieved success by defeating the Dutch record champion team AFC Ajax by the score of 1-0, and collecting points against Turkish giants Galatasaray S.K. and Belgian club RSC Anderlecht.

An interesting fact regarding this clash: both the Estonian team FCI Levadia Tallinn and the Latvian club FK RFS were led by two 1997 born Slovenian captains: defensive/central midfielder Til Mavretič on the home side, is part of Levadia’s squad since 2022; while the extremely tall centre-back Žiga Lipušček on behalf of FK RFS, plays for the club since 2020.

FCI Levadia Tallinn, coached by Spanish-German Curro Torres, started this game in 4-2-3-1 formation. They tried to practice surprise on the opposition team and to take the initiative immediately after the start, which resulted in some dominance in terms of ball possession. Basically they focused on a patient but confident build-up play, avoiding to take big risks. Team captain Til Mavretič (who played as defensive midfielder) took on the main playmaker role, and often stepped back to the CB position through building up from the back line.

FK RFS, under the guidance of Viktors Morozs, opted for the same formation as the opposing team (4-2-3-1). In the defensive phase / out of possession it was often a 4-4-2, as attacking midfielder Jānis Ikaunieks joined alone striker, Serbian-Montenegrin Darko Lemajić in the offensive line. The play with two defensive midfielders, Gambian Haruna Rasid Njie and Serbian Stefan Panić turned to be effective, as both of them were able to make confident and hard tackles, in addition to other great (defensive) activities. The managerial decision, to send the Senegalese substitution players Barthélémy Diedhiou (RW) and Mor Talla (LW) to the pitch was brilliant.

The game’s only one hit came up in the 55th minute, when Stefan Panić converted a penalty kick awarded for handball to a goal (0-1 / as you can see below).

The VAR decision (first image above) and the penalty of FK RFS midfielder Stefan Panić (second image)

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