Nottingham Forest edge past Midtjylland on penalties, Celta and Freiburg reach quarters
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HERNING, Denmark, March 19 : Nottingham Forest fought back from a first leg deficit to reach the Europa League quarter-finals with a 3-0 penalty shootout win over Midtjylland after the teams finished 2-2 on aggregate following extra time on Thursday, while Celta Vigo eliminated Olympique Lyonnais with a 3-1 aggregate win.
Elsewhere, Freiburg made light work of Genk, securing a 5-1 home win to progress 5-2 on aggregate.
After Midtjylland secured a 1-0 first-leg victory at a rain-soaked City Ground through Cho Gue-sung’s late header, Forest made sure their campaign would not end in the round of 16 as goals from Nicolas Dominguez and Ryan Yates sealed them a 2-1 win on Thursday to take the match into penalties.
Forest broke through four minutes before the break as Dominguez’s looping header sailed over Midtjylland goalkeeper Elias Rafn Olafsson and into the bottom corner.
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Yates doubled the lead in the 52nd minute, curling a left-footed strike into the corner from the edge of the penalty area.
Midtjylland struck back in the 69th minute as Martin Erlic pounced on a loose ball to fire a clinical strike, levelling the tie on aggregate. A scoreless period of extra time followed, sending the match to a decisive penalty shootout.
In the shootout, while Midtjylland missed all three of their spot-kicks, Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangare and Neco Williams all fired into the net to lead Forest into the quarter-finals.
Lyon defender Moussa Niakhate was sent off in the opening stages for a late tackle on Celta's Javi Rueda, leaving the hosts a man down.
Despite the numerical advantage, Celta struggled to find a breakthrough before the interval, with both sides squandering clear chances in a scoreless first half.
Celta broke the deadlock in the 61st minute when Hugo Alvarez burst into the area and found fellow substitute Ferran Jutgla. Although Jutgla failed to connect cleanly with the delivery, Rueda slotted it home.
After Javi Rodriguez’s pinpoint pass opened up the Lyon defence, Jutgla calmly rolled the ball home to secure Celta a 2-0 win on the night and a place in the last eight with a 3-1 aggregate result.
To compound Lyon's misery, Nicolas Tagliafico was shown a second yellow card in the final seconds after a foul on Hugo Sotelo, leaving the hosts to finish the match with nine men.
In Freiburg, the hosts overturned a one-goal first-leg deficit with strikes from Matthias Ginter, Igor Matanovic, Vincenzo Grifo, Yuito Suzuki and Maximilian Eggestein sending the German side through to their first-ever European quarter-final, where they will face Celta.
Braga became the first team to reach the Europa League quarter-finals this season after a 4-2 aggregate win over Ferencvaros on Wednesday.
(Tommy Lund in Gdansk, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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