Celta fall 1-2 to Union Saint-Gilloise despite dominating at Balaídos

Pablo Durán put Celta de Vigo ahead after ten minutes with an angled finish from inside the box, set up by Sergio Carreira, and Balaídos dared to dream of something bigger. But the match finished 1-2 in favor of Union Saint-Gilloise, who turned the score around with two goals from Besfort Zeneli and walked away with all three Europa League points.

The equalizer came in the 34th minute: Zeneli popped up in the middle of the box to finish with his right foot after a through ball from Adem Zorgane. The psychological blow landed immediately, and barely had the second half started when the Belgian struck again. In the 48th minute, assisted by Kevin Rodríguez, Zeneli notched his second goal of the afternoon, confirmed after a VAR review, to make it 1-2, a scoreline that would not change again.

Celta kept pushing. There was a moment that could have changed everything: in the 75th minute, Javi Rodríguez committed a handball penalty inside the area, confirmed by VAR two minutes later. But Zeneli himself, who had already done the damage with his two open-play goals, wasted the chance to complete a hat trick, firing with his right foot and seeing the ball skim the right post. The miss kept Celta alive, and they threw everything forward in the closing stretch, winning half a dozen corners in a row and getting shots off from Ferran Jutglà and Couhaib Driouech, but they could not find an equalizer despite five minutes of stoppage time.

Plenty of the ball, few certainties

Territorial dominance clearly belonged to Celta de Vigo, who controlled 58.8% of possession and racked up eleven corners to just one for Union Saint-Gilloise. But soccer isn't measured in yards of the ball alone: the Belgians were far more efficient with less.

That gap also shows up in our expected goals estimate, calculated from the shots taken in the match: Union Saint-Gilloise generated 2.098 xG compared to just 0.887 for Celta. In other words, the visitors took fewer shots but from considerably more dangerous positions, which explains how just 15 shots and three on target were enough to produce two goals.

Before kickoff, our projection gave Celta de Vigo a 25% chance of winning, a 31% chance of a draw and a 44% chance of an away win, with expected goals of 0.96 for the home side and 1.37 for the Belgians (a combined total of 2.32). The final result ended up matching that forecast closely: the most likely scenario, a Union Saint-Gilloise win, is exactly what played out.

What the table shows

In the Europa League standings, Union Saint-Gilloise arrived with a record of three wins and a draw from four games played, and this result cements their place among the competition's top spots. Celta de Vigo, meanwhile, have one win, no draws and three losses from their four matches, a seven-point gap to today's opponent that sums up the distance between the two teams at Balaídos. With no own goal in the mix this time and Zeneli as the undisputed protagonist, the match leaves a clear picture: Celta generated plenty of play, but it was Union Saint-Gilloise who knew how to strike at the right moments, save for the missed penalty that could have changed how the match closed out.