Europa League Round Up

The first leg matches of the round of 16 of this season’s UEFA Europa League took place across Europe last night.

Manchester United were forced to a 1-1 draw by visiting AC Milan. After a goalless first half, Amad Diallo substituted Anthony Martial and spent only four minutes on the pitch before drawing the first blood for the Red Devils. Bruno Fernandes floated the ball into the box and the teenager sneaked behind the Milan defense to back-head the ball beyond the reach of Donnarumma in goal for AC Milan.

Unfortunately, United failed to kill off the game as they missed few other chances.

Milan got a deserved equalizer late into stoppage time, when Simon Jaer powered a header into the back of the net.

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Samuel Chukwueze in action for Villarreal

Samuel Chukwueze and his Villarreal teammates went, saw and conquered Dynamo Kyiv 2-0. Pau Torres and Raul Albiol scored in each half to put the Spaniards on course to qualify for the quarter finals.

Arsenal stormed the Karaiskakis Stadium to confront Olympiacos of Greece. It took only 30 minutes for Martin Odegaard to score his first Arsenal goal with a terrific strike from outside the box. Olympiacos restored parity on the 58th minute when Youssef El Arabi capitalized on a defensive error to fire into an open net.

Martin Odegaard

About 20 minutes later, former Chelsea man, Willian floated the ball into the box and Gabriel was at the back post to glance the ball into the net to restore Arsenal’s lead.

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Mohamed Elneny put the game beyond the reach of Olympiacos with Arsenal’s third of the night five minutes from time.

Jorge Molina and Roberto Soldado scored in each half respectively to give Granada a comfortable 2-0 victory over 10-man Molde.

Harry Kane scored in each half to give Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspurs a 2-0 home win over Dinamo Zagreb.

The biggest winners last night were Roma of Italy, who tore Shakhtar Donetsk apart with three goals from Lorenzo Pellegrini, Stephan El Shaarawy and Gianluca Mancini.

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The second leg of all encounters will hold on Thursday, March 18, 2021.