Freiburg hit five to reach Europa League quarters; Forest survive
Freiburg players celebrate the victory after the UEFA Europa League Round of 16 Second Leg soccer match between SC Freiburg and KRC Genk at the Europa-Park Stadium. Silas Stein/dpa Freiburg stormed into the Europa League quarter-finals with a 5-1 demolition of Genk while Nottingham Forest survived Midtjylland 3-0 in a bizarre penalty shoot-out on Thursday. Freiburg rebounded strongly from a 1-0 defeat in Belgium to go through 5-2 while Forest came from 1-0 down with a 2-1 in Denmark to force the shoot-out.
There Cho Gue-Sung and Aral Simsir hit the left post for the hosts and Edward Chilufya then slipped and fired over while Forest converted their kicks from Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangare and Neco Williams. Freiburg took the lead on their first chance in the 19th to level the tie when Matthias Ginter rose to head a free-kick from Vincenzo Grifo in off the post. Igor Matanovic made it 2-0 six minutes later.
Genk were back out of the blue in the 40th from Matte Smets, but Smets then gifted Freiburg a third with a terrible pass in his own penalty area onto which Grifo pounced in the 53rd. It was 4-1 three minutes later from Yuito Suzuki on the counter and Maximilian Eggestein wrapped up matters in the 79th. Freiburg now face Spain's Celta Vigo who ousted Olympique Lyon 3-1 on aggregate from a 2-0 victory in France.
Lyon were down to 10 men after 19 minutes when Moussa Niakhatรฉ saw a straight red for a studs-up challenge against Celta's Javi Rueda, who was able to play on and added to his first leg goal by tapping in the 61st. Ferran Jutgla wrapped up matters in stoppage time where Lyon then also had Nicolas Tagliafico sent off to end the game with nine men. Forest levelled the tie with Midtjylland from Nicolas Dominguez' looping header in the 41st.
Ryan Yates got the second in the 52nd from outside the area but the tie was level again from Martin Erliฤ in the 69th, and it went to penalties after Yates was ruled offside when he headed home late in extra time. Braga had reached the quarter-finals on Wednesday and the remaining four games are late kick-offs, including an Italian duel between Roma and Bologna, Aston Villa v Lille and Porto v VfB Stuttgart. Genk's Konstantinos Karetsas (L) and Freiburg's Igor Matanovic battle for the ball during the UEFA Europa League Round of 16 Second Leg soccer match between SC Freiburg and KRC Genk at the Europa-Park Stadium.