Sarr channels Afcon agony into goals as Palace set up quarter-final with Fiorentina after Cyprus toil

UEFA Conference League Last 16

AEK Larnaca (0) 1 Enric Saborit 63 Saborit s/o 73, Ioannou 120+4

Crystal Palace (1) 2 Sarr 13, 99

After Extra Time : 1-1 after 90 mins

Aggregate: 1-2

Action from Larnaca: Picture by Pennie Turrell

The anguish caused by the order to hand back his Afcon winners' medal has obviously stung Ismaila Sarr into serious goal scoring action.

The Senegalese striker completed his second decisive two-goal salvo for Crystal Palace in four games which would have become a hat trick or more this time had two further efforts not struck the woodwork here beside the Mediterranean on Thursday. 

Sarr who was in the victorious Senegalese team in January, has been told his country must forfeit their trophy and their medals for creating the mayhem that led to a 17-minute delay during the final in Morocco which they won by a single goal against the hosts. 

Palace's progress to the quarter finals of the Conference League was also by the slimmest of margins despite their domination of the second leg of the round of 16 tie in Cyprus.

The match was virtually an action replay of last week's goalless first leg at Selhurst Park with Oliver Glasner's men once again having little to show for monopolising play.

The visitors, up against ten men from the 73^rd minute and nine for the last few moments of extra time, ultimately eked out an aggregate win which takes them into the last eight and a two-leg tie against two times finalists Fiorentina. 

The tie ended in chaos with Larnaca having two late penalty appeals rejected. The Azeri referee waved play-on after Max Lacroix clashed with Hrvoje Milicevic but the friction then was nothing compared to the disquiet when Aliyar Aghayev changed his mind after pointing to the spot following an alleged handling offence by a Palace player.

After receiving a signal from the fourth official who had obviously consulted the VAR screen, the referee handed the ball back to Walter Benitez who was once again deputising for fever victim Dean Henderson. 

Glasner was booked in the aftermath. "I had to protect my team," he explained. "I had to leave the technical area." 

Palace had earned the first corner within three minutes but they conceded the game's first shot on target to Riad Bajic, the Bosnian who had scored the game's only goal in the first of the clubs' three meetings last October.

Benitez safely held that but in the 14^th minute Sarr scored easily from Adam Wharton's exquisite pass. 

Tyrick Mitchell's desperate clearance denied Pere Pons an undeserved close-range equaliser but Larnaca did draw level in the 63^rd minute when defender Enric Saborit thumped home a header from Marcus Rohden's corner.

Ten minutes later, Saborit was sent off after his second yellow card, leaving Larnaca to face extra time a man short. 

The handicap was to prove beyond them. Wharton's corner in the 105^th minute led to Daichi Kamada crossing low for Sarr to flick in the winner which he more than anyone deserved for a previous curled shot which hit the bar and a subsequent one rolled against an upright when Zlatan Alomerovic was stranded yards from his goal.

Palace were through but they had made agonisingly hard work of it against a team reduced to nine men when Petros Ioannou saw red for a nasty foul on substitute Jean-Philippe Mateta.

The other teams making up the quarter-finals are AEK Athens (Greece), Mainz 05 (Germany), Fiorentina (Italy) Rayo Vallecano (Spain), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), AZ Alkmaar (Holland) and Strasbourg (France).

Larnaca: (5-4-1) Alomerovic - Ioannou, Ekpolo, Milicevic, Enric Saborit, Garcia (Gurfinkel 79) - Rohden (Kyriakou 89), Gus Ledes, Pere Pons (Mudrazija 105), Ivanovic (Roberge 79) - Bajic (Cabrera 76) (Waldo Rubio 112)

Eagles: (3-4-3) Benitez - Richards (Lerma 76), Lacroix, Canvot (Mateta 83) - Johnson (Munoz 60), Wharton (Hughes 119), Kamada, Mitchell - Sarr, Strand Larsen, Guessand (Pino 76)