NAPOLI ENDED SWANSEA City’s adventure in the Europa League on Thursday with a decisive 3-1 win in the second leg of their round of 32 tie, while there were goals aplenty elsewhere.
Swansea travelled to southern Italy hoping that their failure to find a breakthrough in last week’s goalless first leg would not ultimately cost them.
The Serie A side took the lead 17 minutes in at the San Paolo stadium when Lorenzo Insigne cutely lifted the ball over Michel Vorm in the away goal.
However, Garry Monk’s men hit back to grab a crucial away goal on the half-hour mark, Jonathan De Guzman’s low strike from the edge of the box beating Napoli ‘keeper Pepe Reina.
For a long time it looked as if Swansea would progress on away goals, but Gonzalo Higuain took advantage of a lucky ricochet in the box to put the hosts back in front 12 minutes from time, and Gokhan Inler made sure of Napoli’s progress in stoppage time.
Napoli will now face 2011 Europa League winners Porto in the round of 16, after the Portuguese club won a remarkable tie against Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga.Following a 2-2 draw in last week’s first leg, Eintracht looked to be going through thanks to goals from Stefan Aigner and Alexander Meier either side of the interval.
A double from Porto’s France international defender Eliaquim Mangala silenced the crowd of close to 50,000 in the Commerzbank Arena, only for Meier to put the hosts back in front.
But Nabil Ghilas netted four minutes from time to make it 3-3 on the night and take Porto through on away goals, the result easing the pressure on coach Paulo Fonseca.
Elsewhere, there will be the mouth-watering prospect of a derby clash between city rivals Sevilla and Real Betis in the round of 16 after both sides won their ties on Thursday.
Sevilla, who are eighth in La Liga, beat Maribor of Slovenia 2-1 on the night to go through 4-3 on aggregate, while Betis, the Spanish top flight’s bottom club, were impressive 2-0 winners away to Rubin Kazan in Russia, advancing 3-1 overall.The 2009 UEFA Cup winners Shakhtar Donetsk were eliminated by Viktoria Pilsen of the Czech Republic and Ajax fell by the wayside too, going down 6-1 on aggregate to Salzburg, who will next face Basel of Switzerland.
Bulgarian champions Ludogorets Razgrad came from behind to knock out Lazio and will find out the identity of their last-16 opponents later.
Among the later games, Tottenham Hotspur will seek to overturn a 1-0 first-leg deficit when they host Dnipro of Ukraine and Juventus, 2-0 up from the first leg, will aim to finish off their tie against Trabzonspor in Turkey.
