Sevilla, who reached the last 16 of the Champions League last season, were handed a shock playoff defeat by unfashionable Braga on Tuesday while Werder Bremen pulled off a spectacular escape act to oust Sampdoria.
Substitute Lima, 27, a Brazilian journeyman forward, came on to score a second-half hat-trick to give Braga a 4-3 win in Spain and send the Portuguese outfit into the group stage for the first time, 5-3 on aggregate.
Werder, leading 3-1 from the first leg, went 3-0 down at Sampdoria before substitute Markus Rosenberg scored in the third minute of stoppage time to set up extra-time.
PHOTO: AP
Claudio Pizarro then netted as the Bundesliga team lost 3-2 on the night but qualified 5-4 on aggregate to leave Spain and Italy with only three teams in Europe’s top club competition.
There was further drama as Partizan Belgrade knocked out Anderlecht 3-2 on penalties after drawing 2-2 in Belgium where the visitors let slip a two-goal lead in the last half hour.
It is the second time Partizan have qualified for the group stage. The first was in 2003 when they defeated Newcastle United.
Swiss league champions Basel won 3-0 at Sheriff Tiraspol to complete a 4-0 aggregate win over the Moldovans while Hapoel Tel Aviv qualified for the first time with a 1-1 home draw against Salzburg to clinch a 4-3 triumph overall.
It is the 10th season in a row Sheriff have failed to get through the qualifying stages while Salzburg, Austria’s biggest-spending team, have fallen at the final hurdle four times in five seasons.
Braga snatched an away goal in the 32nd minute through Matheus, who also struck in the 1-0 first leg win.
Sevilla had squandered a flurry of early chances with Brazil striker Luis Fabiano and Mali’s Frederic Kanoute the main culprits.
Lima, who played for a number of unfashionable Brazilian clubs before moving to Portugal last season to join Belenenses, doubled Braga’s lead in the 58th minute by slotting home Matheus’ pass.
Luis Fabiano and Jesus Navas hit back to make it 2-2 on the night, only for Lima to add two more goals in the last five minutes before Kanoute pulled one back for Sevilla in stoppage time.
Sampdoria, who grabbed an away goal in injury-time in Bremen last week, were quickly in the driving seat at home with Giampaolo Pazzini netting twice inside 13 minutes.
Substitute Antonio Cassano appeared to have sealed their win when he scored with a backheel five minutes from time but Rosenberg had other ideas as he struck with a low 20m shot with almost the last kick.
Peru striker Pizarro was then on target from 25m to shatter the Italians, who reached the 1992 European Cup final on their only previous appearance in the competition.
“It hurts because we were winning 3-0 and should have dealt with it better,” Sampdoria captain Angelo Palombo told Sky television. “It was a dream and would have meant lots of money to the club. I hope the squad stays together now.”
Striker Cleo, another Brazilian who has made a bigger impact abroad than at home, scored twice in the first hour to put Partizan 2-0 ahead at Anderlecht, taking his tally in the tournament to eight after he was also on target last week.
Seventeen-year-old Romelu Lukaku pulled one back for the Belgians just after the hour and Guillaume Gillet levelled in the 71st minute with a dipping shot from outside the area.
However Partizan, the only Serbian team to have reached the group stage, weathered the storm and won on penalties.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB