Bizarre Penalty Sends Aston Villa to First Champions League Loss at Brugge. Shakhtar Gets First Win

A strange penalty for handball ended Aston Villa’s winning run in Champions League on Wednesday as English team lost 1-0 at Club Brugge.

In or early game, Shakhtar Donetsk playmaker Heorhiy Sudakov h a fine assist and an even better goal in a 2-1 win for Ukrainian champion against Young Boys.

Villa h led 36-team Champions League standings after three straight wins without conceding a goal — and it took a bizarre incident before goalkeeper Emi Martínez was eventually beaten.

Villa defender Tyrone Mings was punished for picking up ball when Martínez seemed to restart play with a goal kick passed short to his teammate.

Mings walked forward a couple steps to gar ball with his left hand and returned to place it at corner of six-yard box.

penalty kick was awarded and Brugge captain Hans Vanaken scored in 52nd minute, placing ball to Martínez's left as World Cup-winning Argentina goalkeeper dived to his right.

Martínez tried to persue German referee Tobias Stieler after game that he h me a mistake.

loss leaves Villa in fifth place in standings w led by Liverpool, with Inter Milan, Arsenal and Brest all able to rise above coach Unai Emery’s team with a win later Wednesday. Inter was hosting Arsenal at San Siro.

Club Brugge has six points, from two wins and two losses and was provisionally in 20th place, which after all eight rounds in January would earn a place in kckout playoffs round.

Shakhtar’s Sudakov showed against Young Boys why he is expected to be club’s next big-money sale.

Both teams came into game without scoring a goal in first three rounds of new league phase format.

Swiss champion Young Boys is struggling in 10th place in its domestic title defense and took an unexpected le in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, where Shakhtar is playing its Champions League home games during military invasion by Russia.

After Shakhtar defense was caught in 27th minute playing short passes deep in its own half, Kastriot Imeri struck with a low shot from edge of penalty area.

Shakhtar was level four minutes later when Sudakov’s precise pass into goalmouth eluded a circle of five Young Boys players to find Oleksandr Zubkov for a tap-in.

Sudakov cleverly created in 41st to stride forward and fire a low shot from 20 yards (meters) into far corner of net past diving goalkeeper Marvin Keller.

Shakhtar is outside playoff places in 26th, with four points, and Young Boys is 35th and among six teams with zero points.