Thursday’s Europa League round-up

Make sure to check out the full UEFA Europa League round-up from Thursday here!
Make sure to check out the full UEFA Europa League round-up from Thursday here!

West Ham United were the biggest casualty in Thursday’s play-off round of the Europa League, as AZ Alkmaar and Anderlecht booked their place in the group stage.

West Ham succumbed to an Astra Giurgiu succerpunch as they conceded the only goal of the match to be eliminated from the Europa League in front of their home fans at the London Stadium.

The Hammers dominated possession but never quite looked comfortable     in the final third, creating half-chances but struggling to convert any of them.

The visiting team from Romania struck seconds before half-time as Filipe Texeira found himself at the end of an excellent counter attacking move and slotted the ball past keeper Adrian for the winner.

All went as expected at the Stadion Letzigrund in Zurich where Grasshopper were comfortably beaten by Turkish club Fenerbahce – the visitors’ two unanswered goals pushing the aggregate score to a thumping 5-0.

Fernandao and Miroslav Stoch’s two late strikes put the outcome of the two legs beyond doubt.

Anderlecht were a class above Slavia Praha for the second time in two weeks, scoring three times and keeping a clean sheet to comfortably eliminate the team from the Czech Republic 6-0 on aggregate.

Yoeri Tielemans, Lukasz Teodorczyk and Michael Heylen each found the back of the net for the hosts.

Somewhat surprisingly AZ Alkmaar were unable to notch up a home goal in their scoreless draw against Serbia’s Vojvodina.

This didn’t affect the ultimate outcome of the qualifying fixtures as the Eredivisie club went into the tie with a comfortable three-goal advantage.

Sparta Praha won a cracker of a match against visiting Sonderjiske – the Croatian team scoring three second-half goals to come back from a 2-0 deficit and saving their European campaign.

Mikhael Ure and Troels Klove opened the scoring for the visiting Danes but David Lafita, and Josef Sural brought matters level. Jakub Brabec popped up on 85 minutes to score the decisive goal.

Serve A outfit Sassuolo managed a 1-1 away draw at Red Star Belgrade, handing them a comfortable 4-1 aggregate win.

The visitors opened the scoring through Domenico Berardi but his effort was cancelled out by Aleksandar Katai on 55 minutes.

A 1-1 draw at Brondby Stadion was enough to see Panathinaikos through – having had a comfortable 3-0 aggregate lead going into this second leg.

Hany Mukhtar opened the scoring for the hosts on 35 minutes but it was always going to be too big a mountain to climb, especially after the goal was nullified by Ivan Ivanov 20 minutes into the second half.

Play-off second-leg results with aggregate scores in brackets:

West Ham United 0-1 Astra Giurgiu (1-2)

Brondby 1-1 Panathanaikos (1-4)

Grasshopper 0-2 Fenerbache (0-5)

Slovan Liberec 3-0 AEK Lamaca (4-0)

Partizan Tirana 0-0 Krasnodar (0-4)

Anderlecht 3-0 Slavia Praha (6-0)

AZ Alkmaar 0-0 Vojvodina (3-0)

BATE 2-2 Astana (2-4)

Genk 2-0 Lokomotiva Zagreb (4-2)

Osmanlispor 2-0 Midtjylland (3-0)

PAOK 2-0 Dinamo Tblisi (5-0)

Shkendija 0-4 Gent (1-6)

Red Star Belgrade 1-1 Sassuolo (1-4)

Hajduk Split 2-1 Maccabi Tel Aviv (3-3 Tel Aviv win on penalties)

Olympiakos Piraeus 2-1 Arouca (3-1)

Saint-Etienne 0-0 Beitar Jerusalem (2-1)

Shatktar Donetsk 2-0 Istanbul Basaksehir (4-1)

Rapid Wein 0-2 Trencin (4-2)

Qarabag 3-1 IFK Goteborg (3-1)

Sparta Praha 3-2 Sonderjiske (3-2)

Maribor 1-0 Qabala (2-3)

Rosenburg 1-2 Austria Wein (2-4)