Salvation of Real Sociedad and AZ failure

In the final round of the Europa League group stage, the owners of the last six tickets to the playoffs of the tournament were determined.

Moreover, two of them were played in Quartet F, in which Napoli, Real Sociedad and AZ kept the chances of continuing their performance in the European Cup.

Gennaro Gattuso's charges had a small backlog, but in the final match they met with the Spaniards, while the Dutch had to travel to Croatia to the modest Rijeka.

Both meetings turned out to be tense, and their outcome was decided only in stoppage time.

The club from San Sebastian was in the balance of defeat, but Willian Jose's goal in the 92nd minute helped him to snatch a draw in Naples - 1: 1.

To get to the playoffs, AZ needed to defeat Rijeka, but the Croats created a sensation.

At the beginning of the second half, the rivals exchanged accurate blows, and the end of the meeting remained with the hosts.

First, the guest's forward Jesper Karlsson received a red card, and in the third added minute, Ivan Tomechak set the final score - 2: 1.

As a result, Napoli and Real Sociedad made it to the Europa League playoffs.

The decisive matches in quartets I and K turned out to be less dramatic. Maccabi from Tel Aviv and Wolfsberg achieved victories at home, sending the ball into the gates of Sivasspor and Feyenoord, respectively.

At the same time, the Dutch performed extremely unsuccessfully and delivered only six shots to the opponent's goal - their worst result since Dick Advocaat's arrival at the club at the end of October 2019.

Passion in Bern and comeback in Vienna

Rapid's footballers were unable to repeat last year's result and make it to the playoffs.

On the eve of the final round, Dietmar Kübauer's team was three points behind Molde, and the victory in the 6th round with a difference of more than two goals allowed them to overtake the rival.

However, everything did not go according to the plan of the Austrians.

Magnus Eikrem twice left the hosts in the role of catch-up, and they could snatch a draw only at the very end of the match - 2: 2.

CFR was in a similar situation, who needed to beat Young Boys on the road.

And up to the 90th minute, the club coped well with the task.

Gabriel Debelyukh's goal in the end brought the Romanian team forward, but then the main referee of the meeting Benoit Bastien came to the fore.

In eight minutes, he showed three red cards, and the first of them turned out to be quite controversial.

The referee concluded that the goalkeeper Christian Balgradean deliberately punched the opponent in the face in an attempt to play the ball and not only sent him off the field, but also awarded a penalty to the Cluj goal.

Jean-Pierre Nsame converted the 11-meter, but after a couple of minutes he went to the room under the stands for a hard foul on his opponent.

True, this did not help the guests.

They went ahead with all their might and forgot about the defense, missing a two-to-zero counterattack in the 98th minute.

Gianluca Gaudino removed all questions about the holder of the playoff ticket, and the Romanian club finished the match with nine.

Damian Djokovic was sent off for talking to the referee.

Not surprisingly, at the end of the match, the CFR players harshly criticized Bastien's work.

So, Balgradean expressed the opinion that the referee was interested in the advancement of the Swiss team to the next round of the tournament, and the captain of the guests, Mario Camora, admitted that he had never faced such a refereeing before.

Despite the lack of tournament motivation, LASK was remembered for a spectacular comeback.

The Austrians lost their chances of reaching the playoffs, but were not going to share points with the outsider of Group J Ludogorets.

The guests conceded in the opening of the second half, but scored three times from 56 to 66 minutes and won their third victory in the group stage.

The Bulgarian team remained with zero in the "points scored" column.

CSKA Sofia performed much better.

In the previous five rounds, the Sofia footballers scored only two points, but loudly slammed the door in the final match, taking over Roma at home - 3: 1.

The double was scored by Ali Sow, and 18-year-old Tommaso Milanese scored the goal of prestige among the guests.

Reaching Piru and Pizzi chasing Yaziji

In addition to the struggle for reaching the playoffs, the Europa League scorers' race was of some interest.

Until the final round, Lille midfielder Yussuf Yazidzhi remained the sole leader, but in the last match of the group stage he only scored an assist.

The French team played twice in the away match with Celtic, but they were unable to do more - 2: 3.

The decisive blow was delivered by David Turnbull.

Benfica's midfielder Pizzi took advantage of this, equaling the Turk in the number of goals scored (six each).

The Lisbon club experienced serious problems in the away meeting with "Standard", which had no tournament value, but still managed to keep a draw - 2: 2.

The Portuguese appeared on the field in the 64th minute, and soon struck irresistibly from the “point”.

Young Doniell Malen from PSV also tried to get closer to the leaders of the scorer race, but with five goals he shared the second line with a number of other players.

His accurate shot marked the beginning of the defeat of Omonia (4: 0), but the main character of the match was Joel Piru.

The forward scored a double in time compensated by the referee and became one of seven players in club history to score at least two goals in his European debut.

In particular, in 1994 the legendary Brazilian Ronaldo succeeded in hitting Bayer's goal three times.

Bayer's performance and Arsenal's triumph

The team from Leverkusen also found a footballer who scored twice in the final round of the UEL group stage.

In the first half of the match against Slavia, it took Leon Bailey just 24 minutes.

Moussa Diaby and Karim Bellarabi then bumped up the score, cementing Bayer Leverkusen as the record-breaking German club scoring at this stage of the tournament.

Previously, no team from Germany managed to score 21 goals in one group stage of the Europa League (the overall record belongs to Napoli - 22 goals in the 2015/16 season).

Hoffenheim is not far behind.

Sebastian Hönes' charges supported the initiative of their compatriots and hit the gates of Ghent four times, and Maximilian Bayer scored two goals and an assist.

The club from Sinsheim has 17 goals in its assets, which allowed it to repeat the previous record for the performance of German clubs: in the 2009/10 season, Werder Bremen scored the same, and nine years later - Eintracht Frankfurt.

Milan continues to demonstrate a confident game.

In Prague, he prevailed over Sparta - 1: 0, came out on top in the quartet and extended his unbeaten streak in away matches in all tournaments to 18 matches.

The last time this bar was conquered by the Rossoneri was in 1993.

The only goal was scored by Jens Petter Hauge.

The 21-year-old Norwegian has four goals in all competitions, which none of his peers from Serie A can boast of.

The most successful in the Europa League so far is Arsenal, which won all six matches of the group stage.

This season, no other team has succeeded in either the Europa League or the Champions League.

In the final round, Mikel Arteta's charges defeated Dundalk away (4: 2).

With a difference of two goals, the other two English teams won, which also became the first in their groups.

Tottenham proved to be stronger than Antwerp - 2: 0, and Leicester defeated AEK with a similar score.

Moreover, the team of Brendan Rogers solved all the issues in just two minutes.

Cengiz Under scored on the 12th, and then - Harvey Barnes.