Roma miss three penalties in Europa League defeat to Lille; Celtic left ‘baffled’ by VAR

Roma missed three consecutive penalties late on against Lille as they lost the Europa League game 1-0

Ozer was Lille’s penalty hero against Roma (Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Roma missed three penalties as they fell to defeat at home to Lille in the Europa League.

The French side led early on through Hakon Arnar Haraldsson's goal in the sixth minute.

But the hosts were awarded an 80th-minute penalty after handball by Lille’s Aissa Mandi.

The first two efforts from Artem Dovbyk were both saved by goalkeeper Berke Özer — only for referee Erik Lambrecht to order the penalty to be retaken both times because of encroachment.

The first was from defender Romain Perraud, who encroached into the box, and the other from the goalkeeper who was judged to have stepped forward too early from his line.

Özer saved three penalties in the game (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Roma then switched penalty takers to Matías Soulé, but Özer saved that one as well, diving to his right to punch the ball away in the 85th minute — five minutes after Dovbyk had made his first attempt.

Celtic also rued a VAR decision in their game against Braga.

With the Scottish side losing 1-0 to Braga, they had an equalizer was ruled out for handball, even though replays seemed to show that Kelechi Iheanacho had scored the goal without any use of his arm.

The VAR took several minutes to review the incident before upholding the referee's initial decision to disallow the goal, which Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers lamented as “baffling.”