Sunday’s slate in the world of English soccer featured a match that had major title implications in the Premier League — Manchester City knocking off Burnley, 1-0, to go to the top of the table — and a pair of matches which could go a long way in determining how the top-6 shakes out, with Leicester City throttling Arsenal, and Manchester United and Chelsea playing one another to a draw. However, none of those are nearly as important as the English League Championship match between Leeds United and Aston Villa, because neither of those involved a gigantic brawl and a squad allowing an uncontested goal.
Here’s what happened: In the 72nd minute of a 0-0 draw, Aston Villa’s Jonathan Kodjia went down after a challenge. Since it wasn’t a head injury or something that appeared to be serious, the official didn’t have to stop play, but usually, the opposing team will kick the ball out of play as a show of good sportsmanship. Aston Villa’s players appeared to think Tyler Roberts of Leeds was going to do this, so they took their foot off the gas momentarily.
Roberts, however, played a ball through to one of his teammates, Mateusz Klich, who continued towards goal and slotted a ball in the bottom corner. Just about everyone in a Villa shirt lost their minds over this, and in response, we got a kerfuffle.
The most controversial goal of the season, bar NONE! 😲
Leeds United score whilst Aston Villa's Jonathan Kodjia is down injured 🤕
A mass brawl kicks off! 👊
Anwar El Ghazi gets sent off 🔴 pic.twitter.com/BHbLhr2uGb— Soccer AM (@SoccerAM) April 28, 2019
We even got a world class flop out of Patrick Bamford of Leeds, which led to Aston Villa’s Anwar El Ghazi getting a red card and sent off.
https://twitter.com/villareport/status/1122481229897654272
Every single thing that could have went wrong for Villa in this fracas occurred, but fortunately for them, Leeds United is managed by a wonderfully crazy person named Marcelo Bielsa. While Bielsa legitimately may be the best and most innovative manager in the world (don’t take my word for it), he’s also as unconventional of a person to ever step on the pitch. This is why he told his team to let Aston Villa score, and while some of his players didn’t seem too stoked about it, Albert Adomah drew his side level.
https://twitter.com/SoccerAM/status/1122487202938855425
“We just gave the goal back,” Bielsa said after the match, per Deadspin. “The facts are what everyone saw, and we express our interpretation of the facts by doing what we did.
“English football is known for sportsmanship, so I don’t have to comment on this kind of thing,” Bielsa continued. “I think today’s performance against the best team in the Championship at this moment puts us close to what our possibilities are.”
The craziest part about all this? Leeds had a pretty good reason for breaking with what sportsmanship determines is acceptable. They entered this match needing a win to stay alive in the race for automatic promotion to the Premier League, and with the draw, that spot went to Sheffield United. They still have a shot at making it to the Prem — Leeds will compete in the English Football League play-offs this year, with the winner of the four-team mini-tournament earning the final promotion spot — but they’ll have to earn it next month.
