It was the second match of this season’s UEFA Europa League in Rīga last night, and the Daugava Stadium was fully sold out. Latvia’s RFS team stunned visiting Istanbul Galatasaray by keeping it to a 2:2 draw.
RFS goals came from Jānis Ikaunieks (40th minute) and Lasha Odisharia (54th minute), while the guests scored in the 12th minute (Dries Mertens) and the 38th minute (Yunus Akgun).
RFS opened its UEFA Europa League campaign last week with a 1:4 loss at Bucharest FCSB, while Galatasaray defeated Greek club Thessaloniki PAOK with a score of 3:1.
RFS will play its next Europa League Group math on October 24 against German team Frankfurt Eintracht. That will be an away game.
Home matches will be played by RFS on November 7 against Belgium’s Brussels Anderlecht, on November 28 against Thessaloniki PAOK, and on January 23 next year against Amsterdam Ajax from the Netherlands.
In addition to the game against Frankfurt Eintracht, other away games for the Rīga club will be against Tel Aviv Maccabi from Israel in Belgrade on December 12, and then against the Ukrainian Kyiv Dynamo team on January 30 next year in Hamburg.
This is only the second time that a team from Latvia has qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League. FC Ventspils achieved this during the 2009/2010 season.
Source: BNS
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