Football
ESPN staff 9y

Europa League: Besiktas edge Tottenham to win group

Tottenham settled for second place in their Europa League group as Besiktas earned the top spot following a 1-0 win over the Premier League side on Thursday.

Moments after Besiktas striker Cenk Tosun rattled the bar with a long effort, he found the back of the net by tapping in a cross from Olcay Sahan, and Tottenham could not find an equaliser.

Tottenham's defeat means they finish on 11 points in Group C to Besiktas' 12, and will now face a more difficult test in the round of 32.

There were two long delays during the match as lights went out around the stadium, the latter coming just as the match ended second-half stoppage time.

Also in Group C, Partizan Belgrade and Asteras Tripoli played to a meaningless 0-0 draw.

Everton were already guaranteed of winning Group H, and a young side fell 1-0 to Krasnodar at Goodison Park, with Ricardo Laborde scoring the only goal of the game on the half-hour mark.

Toffees boss Roberto Martinez gave debuts to 17-year-olds Ryan Ledson and Kieran Dowell, while Conor McAleny and Tyias Browning both made their first senior starts.

The other game in Group H had much more impact on the tournament, as Wolfsburg made sure of second place behind Everton with a 3-0 win over Lille.

Vieirinha opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time and though Josuha Guilavogui was sent off, Ricardo Rodriguez scored a free-kick and a penalty to make victory safe.

A win would have taken Lille through, but Divock Origi missed a penalty as they slid out of the competition without a win, and with just three goals in six games. 

Borussia Monchengladbach and Villarreal both booked their places in the last 32 after closing their Group A campaigns with convincing wins.

Gladbach sealed top spot in the pool thanks to a 3-0 victory at home to FC Zurich. Patrick Herrmann tucked home the first just after half-an-hour and Branimir Hrgota added two more early in the second half, the second a cheeky scooped finished over goalkeeper David Da Costa.

It was no less than the Germans deserved for an utterly dominant performance.

Villarreal finished a point behind Gladbach after first-half goals from Gerard Moreno and Luciano Vietto earned a 2-0 win away to Apollon Limassol.

Holders Sevilla booked their place in the knockout stage with a 1-0 win at home to Rijeka but had to settle for second place in Group G.

Denis Suarez's 20th-minute goal gave the Spaniards victory, but they remained a point behind Feyenoord, who won 3-0 at Standard Liege. Jens Toornstra, Jean-Paul Boetius and Elvis Manu were on target for Feyenoord.

Torino finished Group B in emphatic fashion as they came from behind to win 5-1 at nine-man FC Copenhagen, but still had to settle for second place behind Club Brugge.

Daniel Amartey put the Danes ahead after six minutes, but Josef Martinez levelled on the quarter-hour. Things went from bad to worse for the hosts when Mikael Antonsson was sent off after half-an-hour and Mathias Jorgensen saw red 10 minutes later for a foul in the area.

Amauri netted the resulting penalty and three more Torino goals inside the opening 10 minutes of the second half ended the match as a contest. Martinez added a second and Matteo Darmian and Gaston Silva were also on target.

Club Brugge held on to top spot as they edged a 2-1 home win over HJK Helsinki.

Felipe Gedoz's penalty put the the Belgians in front, but Macoumba Kandji struck a second-half leveller. Lior Rafaelov struck an 88th-minute winner for the hosts.

Dnipro defeated St Etienne 1-0 to earn their place in the next round.

The Ukrainian side started the day bottom of Group F, but Artem Fedetskiy's second-half goal saw them through after Inter Milan held Qarabag to a 0-0 draw.

A win would have made Qarabag the first Azerbaijani side to progress to the last 32 of the Europa League.

Young Boys nicked second place in Group I off Sparta Prague with a 2-0 home win over the Czech side.

A point would have sent Sparta through and they looked like getting it before Guillaume Hoarau's 76th-minute penalty and Renato Steffen's injury-time effort.

Napoli finished top thanks to a 3-0 win at home to pointless Slovan Bratislava. Dries Mertens, Marek Hamsik and Duvan Zapata scored the goals.

Guingamp clinched qualification from Group K ahead of PAOK Salonika as Claudio Beauvue scored twice in a 2-1 win in Greece.

With both sides starting the day level on points, it was the visitors who took second spot behind Fiorentina.

Beauvue opened the scoring and then grabbed an 83rd-minute winner following Stefanos Athanasiadis' penalty equaliser.

Fiorentina finished the pool stage with a 2-1 home defeat to Dinamo Minsk.

Goals from Syarhey Kantsavy and Nemanja Nikolic put Dinamo two up, with Marko Marin pulling one back late on. The visitors had Oleg Veretilo sent off in time added on.

AaB held on to second place in Group J, despite losing 2-0 at Rio Ave, where Yonathan Del Valle scored both goals.

Steaua Bucharest were unable to get the win they needed to move ahead of AaB as they lost 2-0 at home to group winners Dynamo Kiev, for whom Andriy Yarmolenko and Jeremain Lens netted in the second half.

Salzburg completed Group D with five wins and a draw thanks to a 5-1 win over Astra Giurgiu in their final game.

Already confirmed as pool winners, the Austrians went ahead after only nine minutes through Marcel Sabitzer. Kevin Kampl and Alan both scored twice, Gheorghe Florescu pulling one back to briefly make it 3-1, as Salzburg finished with 21 goals from their six group games.

Celtic, the other side through in the group, lost a thriller 4-3 to Dynamo Zagreb, for whom Marko Pjaca scored a hat trick.

Pjaca opened the scoring and then made it 2-2 before half-time after goals from Kris Commons and Stefan Scepovic had turned the match around.

Goals from Marcelo Brozovic and Pjaca again had Dinamo 4-2 up five minutes into the second half, with Scepovic getting Celtic's third late on.

Dinamo Moscow made it six wins from six in Group E as Aleksei Ionov's 90th-minute winner earned a 1-0 success at second-placed PSV Eindhoven.

Panathinaikos drew 1-1 at home to Estoril in the other game, Kleber's late equaliser for the visitors cancelling out Nikolaos Karelis' effort.

Legia Warsaw finished top of Group L with a 2-0 win at home to Trabzonspor, who were also already through.

An own goal from goalkeeper Fatih Ozturk broke the deadlock and Orlando Sa added the second.

In the other match in the pool, Mbaye Leye's goal earned Lokeren a 1-0 win at Metalist Kharkiv.

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