Sevilla vs. Porto: Porto cruise to the last-16-round of Europa League despite the second leg defeat
Sevilla beat Porto 1-0 in the second leg of UEFA Europa League at the Estadio do Dragao on Wednesday night. Luis Fabiano scored for the hosts, who despite winning the game and drawing level 2-2 on aggregate, failed to progress because of the away goal rule.
Andre Villas –Boas made two changes to his side that won the first leg 2-1 last week. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Radamel-Falcao-c30276.
On the other hand, Sevilla made four changes from the 1st leg defeat. Andres Palop, Martin Cacares, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Álvaro-Negredo-c5294 respectively.
The first started in a very sparkling fashion for the visitors, as they came extremely close of scoring in the third minute. Negredo found Kanoute on the edge of the box, whose powerful shoot grazed the top post and went out for goal kick. Porto dominated
the possession in the opening 15 minutes and created several openings.
The first real chance of the game for the hosts came in the 20th minute, when Fernando Belluschi’s cracking volley from 30 yards, rifled just wide of the right post. Porto completely dominated the game and should have scored two or three goals,
had they taken their chances. Just before the half time whistle, Silvestre Varela’s cross picked out Falcao in the box, who smashed a thunderous header into the cross bar from 16 yards.
Sevilla substituted Zokora for Medel in the break, as the second half started in the same fashion as the first half finished. Both teams wanted to make early inroads in the second period, as first chance of the half fell for Porto. The corner kick was crossed
to Belluschi on the edge of the box, and his volley went narrowly above the goal.
The hosts were clearly the dominant of the two sides, as they created flurry of chances deep in the second half. The only thing that they lacked was the killer touch.
Sevilla scored in the 71st minute, against the run of play. Fabiano charged into the Porto penalty area between the two defenders, and slammed the ball past Hector to make it 1-0 for the visitors. The aggregate score became 2-2, but Porto were
still ahead because of the two away goals advantage.
Soon after the goal, both teams went down to ten men in space of three minutes. First, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Hulk-c16436 down by the back of his shirt,
and was shown his second yellow of the game.
The visitors kept the pressure to find another goal, but the hosts held onto their aggregate advantage and cruised to the last 16 round. The draws of the next round will be held in April.
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