'Magical night': Freiburg into Europa League quarters; Forest survive
Freiburg's Bruno Ogbus (R) and Philipp Lienhart 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 tragic penalty shoot-out for the Danish hosts on Thursday. Freiburg rebounded strongly from a 1-0 defeat in Belgium to reach this stage in Europe for the first time with a 5-2 aggregate success, with Vincenzo Grigo becoming club record scorer in the process.
Forest came back from 1-0 home deficit with a 2-1 in Denmark to force the shoot-out. There Cho Gue-Sung and Aral Simsir both 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. Forest now take on Porto in a duel of former European champions in the April 9 and 16 quarter-finals.
The Portuguese beat wasteful VfB Stuttgart 4-1 on aggregate from a 2-0 on the night thanks to William Gomes and Victor Froholdt's stunner into the top corner. Stuttgart also had Nikolas Nartey dismissed. Freiburg will be up against Celta Vigo who beat nine-man Olympique Lyon 2-0 from Javi Ruenda and Ferran Jutgla and 3-1 overall.
Lyon had Moussa Niakhatรฉ sent of early and Nicolas Tagliafico in the closing stages. Freiburg ruthless Freiburg took the lead on their first chance in the 19th to level the tie when Matthias Ginter rose to head a Grifo free-kick 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 for a club record 106th goal. It was 4-1 three minutes later from Yuito Suzuki on the counter and Maximilian Eggestein wrapped up matters in the 79th. "It was a magical night," Grifo said.