Qarabag player hilariously tries to high-five ref after his yellow is rescinded

A Qarabag player was left red-faced on Thursday night after a bizarre but of double jeopardy saw him sent off and left hanging in the space of a few seconds after trying to high-five referee Anthony Taylor.

The Azerbaijani giants took on Bayer Leverkusen, the unbeaten surprise package of the season in Europe, in the hopes of securing what would be a historic place in the Europa League quarter-finals.

Qarabag had taken a surprise lead on the road in Leverkusen, and looked set to challenge the German side's proud invincible bid for 2023-24, only Elvin Cafarguliyev to leave his side a man down in hilarious fashion.

Cafarguliyev was shown a yellow for a last man challenge on Jeremie Frimpong just outside the box, but the decision was sent upstairs for a VAR review.

The review was completed, and referee Taylor took out the card he had shown Cafarguliyev and gave the signal to show it had been scrubbed off, which had the player in a celebratory mood as he put his hand out for a high five with the official.

However, with almost unimpeachable comedic timing, a straight-faced Taylor proceeded to bring out a red card, as the challenge had in fact been upgraded to a sending off offence, all while staring Cafarguliyev straight in the eye.

A skin-crawlingly awkward clip of the exchange put out by TNT Sport did the rounds of social media, which also catches the player's look of half regret, half disappointment as he's given his marching orders.

With Qarabag massive underdogs for the game, it will come as a surprise that they then scored just three minutes after losing a man to make it 2-4 on aggregate and seemingly put one foot in the next round.

But there aren't many teams that have managed to keep Xabi Alonso's Leverkusen quiet for long