raYO 2 – DRITA 0: El Rayo finishes fourth, enters the top 8, avoids the play-offs and is already in the second round of the Conference

This Thursday, Rayo achieved a double victory against Drita. The Madrid team added three more points after beating the Kosovo team in Vallecas, and their brilliant victory on the final day of the Conference League helped them secure the top 8. … and advances to fourth in the round of 16. A position that, in addition to avoiding the play-offs, allows them to forget the competition until mid-March and re-engage with a draw that will face one of these four teams: Omonia from Cyprus, Noah from Armenia, AZ Alkmar from the Netherlands or Celje from Slovenia.

It was a solid victory, cemented by a superb goal from Lejeune late in the first half. The French central defender fired a missile at the team from 35 meters away, which provoked a reaction from Íñigo, who could not believe what the French player had just done. An unstoppable upside-down right arm for a mountain of goalkeepers.

The score was 1-0 at halftime and nothing changed after the break. Drita, despite the defeat, returned home with the joy of being in the top 24 and continuing the competition. They were much inferior to the franjirrojos and knew that the best thing that could happen to them was for the match to end as soon as possible and with a small result so as not to harm their overall goal average.

Gumbau, with an indirect free kick in the area, and Pacha Espino, scored Rayo’s second and third goals respectively and closed a victory that leaves both teams satisfied and confirms that Íñigo Pérez’s team are serious candidates to dream of the Conference.