Aston Villa beats Lille to reach Europa League quarterfinals
John McGinn scored and Aston Villa advanced to the quarterfinals of a European competition for the third straight year with a 2-0 victory over Lille.
Villa, protecting a 1-0 lead in the return leg of the Europa League round of 16, advanced 3-0 on aggregate on Thursday to set up a quarterfinal against Bologna, which beat Roma 4-3 after extra time to advance 5-4 on aggregate. McGinn, who only returned from a knee injury a week ago, completed a move started by Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, who fed Jadon Sancho with a long pass to assist the Villa captain in the second half. Substitute Leon Bailey sealed the victory late on.
Perfect penalties: Nottingham Forest reached the quarterfinals after prevailing over Midtjylland on penalties in Denmark.
Substitutes Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangare and Neco Williams all converted from the spot while Midtjylland missed all three of their penalties. Midtjylland had stunned Forest 1-0 in the round-of-16 first leg at the City Ground, but Nicolas Dominguez and Ryan Yates scored for the visitors on Thursday. It seemed the English team was heading for the last eight before Midtjylland’s Martin Erlic scored to make the aggregate score 2-2 to force extra time.
Forest coach Vitor Pereira had rested several first-choice players ahead of a key Premier League game against Tottenham on Sunday. Both teams are just above the relegation zone.
Forest won the right to face Porto. William Gomes and substitute Victor Froholt scored for the Portuguese side to beat Stuttgart 2-0 at home for a 4-1 aggregate success. The Bundesliga side finished the game with 10 men. A 1-0 lead from the first leg was not enough for Panathinaikos against Real Betis, which surged to a 4-0 victory at Seville to set up a last-eight encounter with Braga.
League winners out: Nine-man Lyon, the winner of the league phase, was eliminated by Celta Vigo in a 2-0 home loss following a 1-1 draw in Spain.
A red card for Lyon defender Moussa Niakhate in the 19th minute proved to be decisive. Celta kept Lyon goalkeeper Dominik Greif busy until Javi Rueda’s close-range finish on the hour. Ferran Jutgla added the second on a counter in stoppage time. Shortly after that, Nicolas Tagliafico also received a red card.
Celta will meet Freiburg in the quarterfinals. The German team reached the last eight for the first time after easing to a 5-1 home win over Genk to overturn a 1-0 loss from the first leg in Belgium.
Sarr saves Crystal Palace: In the third-tier Conference League, Ismaila Sarr scored his second goal in extra time to lift Crystal Palace 2-1 over 10-man Larnaca and send the English team to the last eight in its first European campaign. The teams drew 0-0 last week in London.
Sarr put Crystal Palace ahead before Enric Saborit equalized, forcing extra time in Cyprus. Saborit was later ejected.
Crystal Palace will next face two-time runner-up Fiorentina, which won 2-1 at Polish team Rakow for a 4-2 aggregate win.
