Villarreal kept their Europa League hopes alive with an incident-packed victory over Lazio in Group G. Robert Pires put the home side in front with less than two minutes gone and Lazio were reduced to 10 men moments later. Ruben Cani made it 2-0 and the game was effectively over when Pires scored his second from the penalty spot after 14 minutes.

Villarreal were also reduced to 10 men after 31 minutes when Gonzalo Rodriguez was dismissed, but Pasquale Foggia blasted the resulting penalty off the bar. (more…)

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David Moyes saw his depleted Everton side spectacularly dismantled in the space of five second-half minutes at the Estadio da Luz on Thursday night. Any hopes of a recovery in this Europa League match - after Javier Saviola had opened the scoring - vanished as Oscar Cardozo scored twice and Luisao added to the gains to put Benfica on the road to an emphatic victory. (more…)

Celtic failed to gain closure on 25 years of hurt as they were held 1-1 by old foes Rapid Vienna in their Europa League clash at Parkhead. The home side were shocked to lose a goal to Rapid striker Nikica Jelavic after only three minutes but recovered to level in the 20th minute through Scott McDonald. However, the visitors were worth their point in a decent match between two evenly-matched sides.
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Everton shrugged off the loss of ten first team players to record a superb victory in the Europa League in Belarus thanks to Tim Cahill’s goal 13 minutes from time. In the process, David Moyes’ side have taken a massive step towards securing a place in the next stage after their second successive win in the group. (more…)

Salzburg’s dream start to the Europa League group stage continued as they claimed a stunning 2-0 victory over Villarreal.

Having shocked Lazio with a 2-1 victory in Rome in their opening Group G match, Salzburg created another stir as they downed last season’s Champions League quarter-finalists 2-0 thanks to goals in either half from Marc Janko and Somen Tchoyi. (more…)

Werder Bremen moved three points clear at the top of Group L after seeing off Athletic Bilbao 3-1 despite losing Peter Niemeyer to a red card just five minutes after he appeared as a second-half substitute.

Both sides had won their opening Europa League matches but it was Bremen who took the spoils with a hard-fought victory after playing around 30 minutes a man down following Niemeyer’s dismissal.
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