Sevilla recorded a 2-1 victory over Leicester City in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie, but Jamie Vardy’s late away goal has given the Foxes hope for the return fixture.
Sevilla were huge favourites to prevail at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium and it took just three minutes for Pablo Sarabia to land a shot on the top of Kasper Schmeichel’s goal.
Up the other end, Christian Fuchs fired well over from distance and for the remainder of the first half, it was all Sevilla and they should have taken the lead before the quarter-hour mark.
Wes Morgan brought down Joaquin Correa inside the penalty area, but the Argentine’s spot kick was tame and Schmeichel was able to make the save low down to his right.
Schmeichel also had to be alert to save from Sergio Escudero but he was powerless to prevent Sevilla from taking the lead when Sarabia powered a header into the bottom corner after meeting Escudero’s cross.
A minute later, a deflected effort from Stevan Jovetic almost caught out Schmeichel from 40 yards, before the Danish stopper saved well from Correa who had tried his luck from the edge of the penalty area.
After the restart, Leicester started to show some ambition and Wilfred Ndidi had a shot from 20 yards saved by Sergio Rico, but they had a lucky escape when Vitolo’s shot from an acute angle struck the post and went across the face of goal.
However, shortly after the hour mark, Sevilla doubled their lead through Correa, who fired into the roof of the net from 12 yards out after good work from Jovetic.
It appeared that Leicester would do well to return to the King Power Stadium facing a 2-0 deficit but against the run of play, they netted an away goal which had seemed so unlikely throughout the opening 72 minutes.
Danny Drinkwater was played down the left-hand side of the penalty area and his pin-point cross picked out Vardy, who converted into the roof of the net from six yards out.
Leicester still had ambitions for a second but it soon became apparent that they would be best served trying to hold on to what they had as they dug in to try to take something back to the East Midlands.
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