Stoppage-Time Penalty Leaves OH Leuven and Roma Femminile Draw Hanging

The scoreline reads 0-0, but at King Power at Den Dreef Stadion the match served up controversy right at the death. With the clock already showing the 93rd minute, VAR reviewed a play and called a penalty for Roma Femminile after a handball by Kim Everaerts inside the box. The problem for the Italians is that with the score still level, the match ended right there: neither the official record of this match nor the clock allowed enough time to find out what happened with that spot kick.

The strange part is that the penalty was almost the only real jolt in a final stretch that had otherwise been an exchange of blows without reward. The draw leaves both sides with a point in this group, where they now share the same standing with identical records: a draw in their only match played so far.

A back-and-forth match without goals

OH Leuven Ladies and Roma Femminile traded chances from the opening whistle. As early as the 4th minute, Annalena Rieke tested the keeper with a header off a free kick delivered by Manuela Giugliano, but missed the target. Kayleigh van Dooren gave a warning in the 10th minute with a shot that grazed the crossbar, and a few minutes later it was Manuela Giugliano who forced a save from the home goalkeeper. On the Belgian side, Ioanna Papatheodorou also had her moment in the 20th minute, though her shot drifted wide to the left.

The second half followed the same script. Jada Conijnenberg became Leuven's most persistent threat, firing off several shots that were either saved or blocked between the 47th and 85th minutes without breaking the deadlock. On the other end, Martina Piemonte, who came on from the bench, came close to putting Roma ahead in the 78th minute with a header that clipped the crossbar. Neither team managed to convert its chances, and the match dragged on toward that chaotic finish with the VAR review.

The numbers behind the draw

The stats reflect an even contest, with Roma Femminile slightly sharper in front of goal:

Our in-house xG estimate, calculated from the shots taken during the match, gives Roma Femminile a 2.049 against OH Leuven Ladies' 1.412, suggesting the visitors generated somewhat more genuine danger than the final score would indicate.

Ahead of the match, our projection gave OH Leuven Ladies a 39% chance of winning, 29% for the draw and 32% for a Roma Femminile victory, with an expected goals total of 2.69. The result ended up matching the least likely of the three outcomes on paper, the draw, though the shot count and xG numbers show there was plenty of reason to believe either side could have walked away with all three points.

With this result, both OH Leuven Ladies and Roma Femminile sit on one point in the group standings, with just one match played each so far. What remains unresolved, and likely the first question on the minds of fans from both sides, is what ultimately happened with that penalty flagged by VAR in the match's final seconds.