Soccer

David Healy 'immensely proud' of Linfield players as they bow out of Europe

Linfield manager David Healy salutes the Windsor Park crowd following last week's first leg win over Qarabag Picture by PA
Linfield manager David Healy salutes the Windsor Park crowd following last week's first leg win over Qarabag Picture by PA Linfield manager David Healy salutes the Windsor Park crowd following last week's first leg win over Qarabag Picture by PA

Uefa Europa League play-off round, second leg: Qarabag 2 Linfield 1 (Agg. 4-4, Qarabag win on away goals)

LINFIELD’S dream of reaching the group stages of the Europa League died an agonising death in Baku last night as they went out on away goals to Azerbaijani champions Qarabag.

However, Blues boss David Healy insisted he was still “immensely proud” of his players who had taken an Irish League team to the brink of the group stages in European competition for the first time.

Trailing 3-2 from the first leg in Belfast, Qarabag took a sixth-minute lead through Jaime Romero's left-foot shot into the bottom corner.

Despite the hosts enjoying most of the possession Linfield remained resolute until Abdellah Zoubir's late goal. Shayne Lavery rifled home in injury-time to make it 4-4 on aggregate, but enough time remained for David Healy’s men to force a second.

"I'm proud of the players, proud of the staff - how we went about the experience and how everyone played their part - but disappointed, gutted to lose in the manner that we did," said Healy.

"I'm immensely proud of how we set about our task. We wanted to stay in the game - it was important that we did that so that we were in a position to give it a right go in the last 15 minutes.

"To get done with a sucker punch for their second goal, which looked clearly offside, is disappointing. Yes, they had a few chances and Rohan [Ferguson] had to make a few saves but, overall, it was hugely positive from our perspective.”

The Linfield manager added: "It has been an incredible seven or eight weeks for me personally and I know the staff and the players never expected to be 15 minutes away from scoring a goal which would have put us in the group stages."