Braga boss Carlos Carvalhal believes the “fantastic” quality at Brendan Rodgers’ disposal was a key reason for Leicester City’s 4-0 thrashing of his side in the Europa League last night, speaking to Sport TV, via Mais Futebol.
If there were any doubts about the strength in depth of this Foxes squad, a swaggering victory over the team that finished third in the Portuguese top flight last season dispelled them in ruthless fashion.
Jamie Vardy, Harvey Barnes, Youri Tielemans and Timothy Castagne were rested at the King Power but it made no difference as Kelechi Iheanacho and co stepped up in style.
The former Manchester City striker scored the first and second goals before setting up Dennis Praet for Leicester’s third following a flowing team move.
The excellent James Maddison, who linked brilliantly with Iheanacho all night, put the cherry on the cake late on.
“The first half was balanced, with a Walt Disney goal,” Carvalhal, the former Swansea and Sheffield Wednesday boss said while blaming fatigue for Braga’s collapse.
“The intention in the second half was to reverse the result. We have played a great number of games, every three days, high intensity games.
“A team in this state, which suffers the 2-0 deficit in the 47th minute, evidently has a general mental break in the spirit of wanting to reverse the result, also brought on by a strong opponent who has fantastic players.
“The result ends up increasing due to the quality of the opponent.”
Now, if we’re honest, we have no real idea what Carvalhal means by a “Walt Disney” goal.
Perhaps he thought the way Iheanacho opened the scoring, benefiting from a lucky rebound as the ball landed in his path almost on the goal-line, was a tad ‘Mickey Mouse’.
Leicester won’t care, of course, after a team of fringe players battered one of Portugal’s finest to make it three wins from three in the group stage.
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