Arsenal and Chelsea on Thursday reached the last 16 of the UEFA Europa League after the Gunners comfortably saw off BATE Borisov 3-0 and Maurizio Sarri’s troubled side relieved some of the pressure on him with the same scoreline against mediocre Malmo.
After falling 1-0 in Belarus, Arsenal were level on aggregate after just three minutes when Zakhar Volkov sliced Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s low cross past Denis Scherbitski into his own goal.
Unai Emery’s side deservedly went through thanks to two thumping headers from Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis either side of halftime which put them into yesterday’s draw.
Photo: AFP
“We wanted this result, but also we wanted to play for our supporters here. We did our best to come back [in the tie] and the team worked very well,” Emery told BT Sport.
Ahead 2-1 from the first leg in Sweden, Chelsea had to wait until 10 minutes after the break for the first sign of excitement, Olivier Giroud tapping in the decisive goal of a humdrum encounter at Stamford Bridge.
Ross Barkley made sure of the win with a super free-kick in the 74th minute, just after Malmo’s Rasmus Bengtsson was sent off for his second bookable offense, before 18-year-old Callum Hudson-Odoi made the most of a rare start by crashing home the third.
“The boys really played well today. We worked hard throughout the game,” said Hudson-Odoi, a Bayern Munich target last month. “The goal that came at the end was definitely a bonus for the way that we played.”
Carlo Ancelotti’s SSC Napoli breezed to a 2-0 win over Zurich that saw them win 5-1 on aggregate, while Inter went through 5-0 after sweeping four goals past SK Rapid Vienna without reply at the San Siro.
French side Stade Rennais are into the round-of-16 of a major European tournament for the first time after winning possibly the most entertaining tie of the round 6-4 on aggregate following a barnstorming 3-1 win at Real Betis Balompie.
Goals from Ramy Bensebaini and Adrien Hunou fired Rennes into a two-goal lead within the opening half an hour, but the tie was put back in the balance when Giovani Lo Celso pulled one back four minutes before halftime.
With Betis pushing to equalize and go through on away goals, M’Baye Niang finished a stoppage-time break to see the mid-table Ligue 1 side through.
RB Salzburg, Dinamo Zagreb and Zenit Saint Petersburg all overturned first-leg deficits, with Austrians Salzburg hammering Club Brugge 4-0 to go through 5-2 and Croatian champions Dinamo 4-2 winners on aggregate after a storming 3-0 victory over Viktoria Plzen.
Zenit overcame Fenerbahce 3-1 in Russia, Magomed Ozdoev and Sardar Azmoun giving the hosts an aggregate lead before Mehmet Topal put the Turks ahead on away goals just before halftime.
However, on his home debut for Zenit, Iran international Azmoun struck again 14 minutes from time to see Sergei Semak’s side through.
Pablo Fornals snuck Villarreal past Portugal’s Sporting with a fine curling strike that gave the Spanish side a 1-1 draw on the night and a 2-1 win overall, while SL Benfica eased past Galatasaray 2-1 after a goalless draw in Portugal.
Krasnodar shocked Bundesliga outfit Bayer 04 Leverkusen with a 1-1 draw that saw them through on away goals.
Eintracht Frankfurt saved Germany’s blushes by sweeping past Shakhtar Donetsk with a pulsating 4-1 win that gave them side a 6-3 aggregate victory.
Scotland’s participation in Europe ended after 10-man Celtic fell 1-0 at Valencia, already 2-0 up from the first leg in Glasgow and the winners in Spain thanks to Kevin Gameiro’s 70th-minute strike.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier