Luca was involved in the Excelsior goal but I can't necessarily tell if he was at fault. He's #14 here for Heracles. A lot of the Heracles players take the blame. Excelsior wove to the attacking third, but eventually were stopped. As Heracles tried to build, a pass to Luca led to a turnover. On this camera angle, I can't tell how close the pass was to Luca - but it wasn't a good pass. Luca tried to defend Excelsior's subsequent attack on the left side. He blocked the first cross, but the ball came back to the Excelsior player who was able to send the cross in again. It led to a goal. Watch here https://streamja.com/6K7RK
Ok.. to all of you wannabe refs out there: Can someone explain to me how this is just a yellow card and not a red? https://streamja.com/oeOz5
Luca de la Torre gets stripped on what was ruled a tough, but clean challenge. That turnover leads to the third Excelsior goal https://streamja.com/gXmNv
He did that multiple times that I saw. Another one also led to a dangerous break. And he was just taking bad angles to challenges again, + getting pipsqueaked. You could attribute some blame on the 2nd goal for losing a header. Heracles is nothing like Hercules. Rival fans be opening their hymnals and singing Gloria In Excelsior Deo! tonight. They're in all likelihood on their way to the big show!
Still one more round after this matchup, but that’s probably irrelevant to Heracles. Luca can only hope to have an improved showing in the last game so that there’s some good footage.
I am not sure what has happened to LDLT. He had a good season but the last four games have been catastrophic. He's not the only one on Heracles playing poorly, of course. All the players share the blame. He's in his worst form since heading to Holland. Heracles has just 1 goal from its last 4 games and all the opponents have either been bottom 25% of the Eredvisie or, in this case, in the second tier.
Stranger things have happened. But Heracles is in a nosedive. It's more than just an ugly loss in the first leg.
A little disappointing about LDLT is that when he left England, he said his reasons for doing so is that clubs in England prefer physically stronger CMs. It's fine to leave England to get minutes, but shouldn't he also take it as a sign to get physically stronger, even in a less physical league? Don't get me wrong. He has some really good skills and is not a bad player. But he should address the weaknesses in his game in the meantime. He's 24 this month, so he's at the age where he should be fairly complete.
Heracles are in the relegation playoff?!?!? WTF did that come from?? It's not the end of the season you want for any player but I doubt it'll be that big a deal in the grand scheme of things: if they do go down, players will have to be sold and Luca ought to be one of their more saleable players.
A few things lead to that and one of it is their star striker killed a 4 yo kid while being drunk driving and the club made the mistake to let him play. The fans basically chased him out of the selection, costing the club a lot of goals.
Starts in the 2nd leg: 𝗢𝗻𝘇𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 🖤🤍 #herexc pic.twitter.com/sMAIF8gwpi— Heracles Almelo (@HeraclesAlmelo) May 21, 2022