Dynamo Kiev shattered Everton’s hopes of restoring English pride with a ruthless 5-2 demolition of the Premier League side in the UEFA Europa League round-of-16 on Thursday.
Italy came off slightly better, with SSC Napoli and ACF Fiorentina both going through, but AS Roma, Torino and Inter all fell by the wayside.
Club Brugge KV of Belgium had a comfortable passage into the last eight, winning 3-1 away at Turkish side Besiktas thanks to a late double from Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo for a 5-2 aggregate win and Sevilla completed another 5-2 aggregate triumph over Villarreal in the round’s all-Spanish tie.
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Ajax, though, found themselves victims of the away goals rule as they went out to Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk of Ukraine after extra-time, having leveled the tie at 1-1 after 90 minutes and winning 2-1 on the night.
After Arsenal and Manchester City were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League this week, Everton went into the second leg in Kiev as the only English club still flying the flag in Europe this season, but Roberto Martinez’s team fared no better than their domestic rivals as they were swept away by a first-half goal spree from Kiev, who eventually ran out 6-4 aggregate winners.
“A couple of times we made some defensive mistakes, but there was also some incredible finishing from the opposition,” Martinez said. “I agree there were instances when we could have defended better, but there is not a lot you can do about goals that go right into the top corner. It was the kind of night where everything they tried went into the back of the net.”
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Napoli and Fiorentina weathered the away legs of their ties to reach the last eight, Napoli drawing 0-0 at Dynamo Moscow and Fiorentina stunning Italian rivals AS Roma 3-0 to go through 4-1 on aggregate, but Torino could not overturn a 2-0 deficit against Zenit Saint Petersburg, despite Kamil Gilk’s last-minute winner on the night and Zenit having no fewer than seven men booked.
Inter slumped to a humiliating 2-1 home defeat to VfL Wolfsburg, for whom Nicklas Bendtner rounded off a 5-2 aggregate victory.
Trailing 2-1 from last week’s first leg, Dynamo Kiev took the lead through Andriy Yarmolenko and, although Romelu Lukaku equalized for Everton, it was Sergei Rebrov’s side who were the dominant force.
Lukasz Teodorczyk and Miguel Veloso struck before halftime, then Oleg Gusev and Vitorino Antunes netted in the second half to bring a suitably downbeat conclusion to a woeful season for Premier League teams in Europe.
In Moscow, Napoli brought a 3-1 lead from the first leg thanks to Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain’s slick hat-trick and always looked comfortable.
After a 1-1 draw with Roma in Florence a week ago, Fiorentina stormed into a 3-0 lead at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome to put a comeback virtually beyond the hosts.
All three goals were bagged by defenders, as Gonzalo Rodriguez opened the account with a coolly-struck penalty after nine minutes, Marcos Alonso added a second and Jose Maria Basanta’s header made it 3-0 on 22 minutes.
“I take my hat off to Fiorentina, who made the most of the chances we gifted them,” Roma boss Rudi Garcia said. “I’m mortified tonight. The team showed a lot of will, but when we commit individual errors like we did there’s little you can do.”
Wolfsburg took advantage of wide spaces at the back as Inter poured forward in a bid to overturn the 3-1 deficit from the first leg and they all but sealed their place in the next round when Daniel Caligiuri got on the end of a Kevin de Bruyne cross.
Rodrigo Palacio sprung the German offside trap to level on the night with 18 minutes to go, before Bendtner put it beyond doubt, sweeping the ball home a minute from the end.
In Turkey, an unstoppable left-foot drive into the top corner by Besiktas defender Ramon Motta early in the second half gave the home side a glimmer of hope, but a burst of speed just after the hour saw Tom de Sutter slip past the defense and fire low under goalkeeper Tolga Zengin.
A late brace from Congolese 20-year-old Bolingoli-Mbombo fired the Belgians into the quarter-finals with a 3-1 win on the night.
In Amsterdam, Dutch 18-year-old Riechedly Bazoer put Ajax 1-0 up with a solo effort to level the tie with Dnipro on the hour and the game went to extra-time, but it was the Ukranian side who had the last word when Yevheniy Konoplyanka grabbed the vital away goal in the 97th minute and even though Mike van der Hoorn made it 2-1 in the 118th minute, it was not enough for the Dutch side to progress.
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
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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