Lionas “Olympic” | Photo: AP Photo / Laurent Cipriani
Lyon’s Olympique and Naples celebrated convincing victories in the fourth round of the UEFA Europa League on Thursday. In group A, Olympique beat Prague’s Sparta 3: 0 (0: 0) at home. In the 61st and 63rd minute, Islam Slimani scored, and in the second minute of the match compensation time, Karl Toko Ekambi.
In the second game of the group, the Danish club “Brondby” played 1: 1 (1: 0) with the “Rangers” of Glasgow. Guests scored both goals. 45 minutes into the match, Leons Baloguns scored a goal, and the Scottish club equalized in the 77th minute after Janisa Hadži’s shot. After four games, the Lyon club has already secured the victory in the group and a place in the eighth final with 12 points. There are four points for “Sparta” and “Rangers”, and two points – “Brondby”.
In group C, “Napoli” won a devastating victory for the guests, beating Warsaw’s “Legia” 4: 1 (0: 1). Mahir Emreli took the lead in the tenth minute, but in the second half the guests responded with four “goals”. In the 51st minute, Pjotr Zelinskis equalized the result with an 11-meter penalty kick, but Driss Mertenss scored three more goals at the end of the match with an 11-meter shot, Irving Losano and Adam Una.
In Group D, the victory was celebrated by Frankfurt’s Eintracht, which beat Piraeus’ Olympiakos 2: 1 (1: 1). Here, too, the home team was the first to score, leaving Jusefam Elarabi in the 12th minute, but five minutes later the guests responded with Daiči Kamada’s exact broadcast and Jens Heuge’s “goal” match in the second minute of the match. The rest of Thursday’s early games ended in a draw.
In group E, Istanbul “Galatasaray” with Moscow “Lokomotiv” played 1: 1 (1: 0). In group H, “Genk” from Belgium agreed to draw with Westham “United” from England – 2: 2 (1: 0). In group B, on the other hand, even two draws were recorded. At home, Monaco failed to break Eindhoven’s PSV defense – 0: 0, but San Sebastian’s Real Sociedad failed to beat Graz’s Sturm 1: 1 (0: 1).
In the UEFA Europa League, 32 teams are divided into eight subgroups of four units each. The group winners will enter the second round of the elimination tournament immediately, the play-offs from the first round will start with the second place winners, who will compete with the third place winners in the UEFA Champions League groups, and the season will continue in the UEFA European Conference League. Last season, the victory in the UEFA Europa League was won by Villareal, which beat Manchester United in the final in Gdańsk. The finals of this season will take place in Seville, Spain.
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