A Robbie Keane goal in the 76th minute saved Leeds United an early UEFA Cup exit as David O'Leary's side were beaten 3-2 by French side Troyes but stumbled into the third round 6-5 on aggregate. Holding a 4-2 advantage from the first leg at Elland Road, United trailed 3-1 with 14 minutes remaining when the Dubliner headed home to save the blushes of last season's Champions League semi-finalists.
The home side got off to an ideal start when Gharib Amzine connected sweetly with a Loko corner from 25 yards to reduce the deficit to one, but United restored parity and their two-goal aggregate cushion just six minutes later when Mark Viduka powered a header past Tony Heurtebis following a corner from Ian Harte.
Troyes took the lead on the night again when a 25-yard free-kick from David Hamed seven minutes from the break took an unfortunate deflection off Dominic Matteo to wrong-foot Nigel Martyn. The French side extended their lead in the 58th minute when Jerome Rothen swept home Rafik Saifi's goal-line pull back to level the tie at 5-5, which would have seen them through because of their away goals in Leeds.
However, with time ticking by and Leeds looking short of ideas in the final third, David Batty picked up a clearance in the 76th minute and fed Viduka, whose ricocheted cross found Keane to head home his seventh goal of the season. Even then it took a brilliant point-blank block by Martyn in denying Nicolas Gousse in the dying seconds of injury time to prevent extra time and see Leeds through.
Filed by Shane Murray
