Aston Villa thrashed Ajax 4-0 at Villa Park in the second leg of the round of 16, emphatically taking the ticket to the last 8 of the Europa Conference League. At the same time at the “Jan Breydel Stadion”, Brugge overturned their defeat by Molde in the first match, defeating them convincingly 3-0 and advanced to the quarter-finals of the competition with an aggregate score of 4-2.
In Birmingham, Aston Villa turned “Ianda” into a…comparso, taking the lead from the first half with the goal of the terribly in-form Watkins in the 25th minute. In the second half, Bailey made it 2-0 in the 60th minute, while in the 66th minute Ajax collapsed after Manswerk was sent off with a second yellow card. The “villagers” reached a triumph with two more goals from Duran (75′) and Diaby (81′) that made the final 3-0.
At the same time, Brugge was sweeping against Molde and “overturned” their 2-1 defeat in the first match in Norway. Skov Olsen with two goals in the first minute of stoppage time and in the 48th minute laid the foundations for the Belgians to qualify and Skoras in the 71st minute “cleaned up” the match.
In Lille, the home team, having secured a 3-0 advantage from the first match in Austria, were held to a 1-1 draw with Sturm Graz and in turn celebrated their qualification to the “8”. Santos opened the scoring for the home team in the 43′, with Bireth shaping the final result in the 45’+2′.
The detailed results and scorers of the return games for the round of 16 of the Europa Conference League are as follows:
Fenerbahce (Turkey)-St. Gilois (Belgium) 0-1
(68′ Rasmussen)
First St. 3-0: Fenerbahce qualified with a 3-1 aggregate score
PAOK (GREECE)-Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) 5-1
(27′ Bamba, 34′ aut. Susic, 42′ Brandon Thomas, 73′ Koulierakis, 88′ pen. Andr. Zivkovic – 49′ Hoxha)
First St. 0-2: PAOK qualified with a total score of 5-3
Fiorentina (Italy)-Maccabi Haifa (Israel) 1-1
(59′ Barak – 88′ Halaili)
First St. 4-3: Fiorentina qualified with a total score of 5-4
Viktoria Plzen (Czech Republic)-Servet (Switzerland) 3-1 pen. /k.d. and par. 0-0
First St. 0-0: Viktoria Plzen qualified on penalties with a total score of 3-1
Aston Villa (England)-Ajax (Netherlands) 4-0
(25′ Watkins, 60′ Bailey, 75′ Duran, 81′ Diaby)
First St. 0-0: Aston Villa qualified with a 4-0 aggregate score
Bruges (Belgium)-Molde (Norway) 3-0
(45’+1′, 48′ Skov Olsen, 71′ Skoras)
First St. 1-2: Bruges qualified with a 4-2 aggregate score
Lille (France)-Sturm Graz (Austria) 1-1
(43′ Santos – 45’+2′ Bireth)
First St. 3-0: Lille qualified with a 4-1 aggregate score
Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel)-OLYMPIACOS (GREECE) 1-4 / The match has been taken to a half-hour overtime
(57′ pen. Zahavi – 10′ Pontense, 36′ Fortounis, 45’+3′, 65′ El Kaabi)
First St. 4-1