ROME (AP)—Dutch clubs PSV Eindhoven and Twente each advanced to the next round of the Europa League on Thursday, along with Anderlecht, Athletic Bilbao and Legia Warsaw. Meanwhile, Lazio revived its chances and Tottenham fell from first to third in its group.
Also, 2010 winner Atletico Madrid took over top spot in Group I with a 4-0 rout of Udinese, which left home Serie A scoring leader Antonio Di Natale.
Trailing by two goals shortly after the break against Hapoel Tel Aviv, PSV— which won the tournament when it was called the UEFA Cup in 1978—fought back for a 3-3 draw that secured the point it needed to make the last 32.
Ola Toivonen pulled one back for PSV in the 59th minute and Kevin Strootman equalized three minutes from time after Roei Gordana’s 72nd-minute red card reduced Hapoel to 10 men.
PSV leads Group C with 10 points and Warsaw is next with nine after beating Rapid Bucharest 3-1 in a match in which both sides finished with 10 men. Bucharest and Hapoel trail with three and one points, respectively, and were both eliminated.
In a 3-2 win over Danish side Odense, Leroy Fer came off the bench to score the winner with a header in the 82nd for Twente, which also got an own goal from Daniel Hoegh and another score from Denny Landzaat.
Twente leads Group K with 10 points, followed by Fulham with seven and Odense and Wislow Krakow with three each.
Fulham beat Wisla 4-1 in the other group match.
With two rounds of games remaining, Anderlecht maintained the only perfect record in the group stage following a 3-0 shutout of 10-man Sturm Graz in Group L.
Bilbao edged Salzburg 1-0 with a first-half strike from Ander Herrera, stretching the Basque club’s unbeaten streak to nine games in all competitions under former Argentina and Chile coach Marcelo Bielsa.
Bilbao, which next faces Barcelona on Sunday, leads Group F with 10 points. Paris Saint-German moved into second with seven points following a 1-0 win over Slovan Bratislava, as the French club’s ?42 million ($60 million) signing Javier Pastore proved his worth by scoring a 63rd-minute volley through the goalkeeper’s legs. Salzburg trails with four points and Bratislava was eliminated with one point.
Lazio beat FC Zurich 1-0 with midfielder Cristian Brocchi scoring from beyond the area in the 62nd after taking a backheel pass from Djibril Cisse, who replaced Miroslav Klose at halftime.
“This victory came from our hearts,” said Lazio coach Edy Reja. “In the second half we also had chances to make it 2-0 and if we had been slightly more lucid we would have closed the match out. Instead we suffered a bit.”
It was Lazio’s first win in this season’s competition.
“You’ve got to play these matches with maximum intensity,” Reja said. “In Europe no result is easy, and even with today’s victory qualifying won’t be easy. We’ve got to win at Vaslui.”
Sporting Lisbon, which had already advanced, remained atop Group D with nine points despite losing 1-0 to Romania’s Vaslui, which earned its first group stage win. Lazio and Vaslui are next with five points each and Zurich trails with two.
In Russia, Tottenham’s reserves fell 1-0 at Rubin Kazan.
Bebras Natcho scored for Kazan in the 55th with a splendid free kick to snap Tottenham’s 11-match unbeaten run in all competitions. Greek side PAOK Thessaloniki moved atop Group A with a 3-1 win over Shamrock Rovers in Ireland.
PAOK has eight points and Kazan and Tottenham have seven each but Kazan has the edge on goal difference.
Also, Birmingham was held to 2-2 at home by Club Brugge and last season’s runner-up Braga routed Maribor 5-1 to leave Brugge, Birmingham and Braga each level on seven points, while Maribor was eliminated with one point.
In Group E, Stoke moved four points clear with a 2-1 win at Maccabi Tel Aviv thanks to second-half goals from Dean Whitehead and Peter Crouch.
Atletico and Udinese are level with seven points each in Group I, although the Spanish club has the edge on head-to-head goal difference. Celtic is next with five points following a 3-1 win over Rennes, which trails with two.
Import From: http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-europaleagueroundup
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