Sabah stuns Slavia Prague, wins 2-0 despite being outplayed

Sabah beat Slavia Prague 2-0 at the Baku Olympic Stadium in a Champions League match the scoreline doesn't fully capture. Slavia had more of the ball, more shots and more clear chances, but Sabah showed up twice at just the right moments and walked away with all three points.

The first warning came in the 16th minute and never made the scoreboard: Kaheem Parris thought he'd opened the scoring, but VAR chalked off the goal after review for offside. It stayed 0-0 through halftime in a choppy first half full of fouls and short on clean chances, though Slavia had already served notice with shots from Ange N'Guessan and Tomás Chory.

A counterattack and a left-footed finish changed everything

Sabah struck almost as soon as the second half began. In the 48th minute, Parris made no mistake this time, firing left-footed from the center of the box, low and inside the post, off an assist from Ivan Lepinjica on the counter. The 1-0 rewarded the efficiency of a team that had seen less of the ball.

Slavia answered with persistence. Lukás Provod kept testing the Sabah defense from inside and outside the box, and between the 52nd and 62nd minutes the home goalkeeper had to come up with several saves to protect the slim lead. The Czech side shuffled its bench, bringing on Mubarak Suleiman and Wiktor Nowak before later adding Mojmír Chytil in search of an equalizer, and created chances of every kind, but couldn't find the net.

The match was put away in the 87th minute: Joy-Lance Mickels, on from the bench, finished left-footed from the left flank into the middle of the goal after a pass from fellow substitute Orphé Mbina. The 2-0 sealed the result and left Slavia empty-handed despite its control of the game.

What the numbers say

The stats confirm that Slavia Prague drove the game for long stretches, even if it wasn't enough to turn that into goals.

An in-house xG estimate based on the match's shots backs up that impression: Slavia generated 3.16 expected goals to just 0.95 for Sabah. In other words, the visitors built far more dangerous situations, but finishing ended up deciding the result in the other team's favor.

The outcome also stands in contrast to the pre-match projections. Sabah had been given a 42% chance of winning, with a 27% chance of a draw and a 31% chance of a Slavia win, alongside a fairly even expected-goals split of 1.64 for the home side and 1.40 for the visitors. The final score, with Sabah winning in authoritative fashion and keeping a clean sheet, ended up being far more one-sided than that forecast suggested.

What it means in the standings

In this phase of the Champions League table, Sabah arrived at the match with one loss and one win to its name, while Slavia Prague carried two losses and no points. With this result, Sabah adds another win to its tally, while Slavia is still searching for its first goal in the competition, a task that proved no easier despite controlling large stretches of play in Baku.