Europa League: Mohamed Salah Leads Liverpool To 6-2 Win Over Sparta To Book Quarterfinals Spot

Mohamed Salah. (Image: AP)

Mohamed Salah scored one goal and set up three to help Liverpool demolish Sparta Prague 6-1 and march into the Europa League quarterfinals. After winning 5-1 the opening leg of their last 16 tie in Prague, Liverpool scored four in the opening 14 minutes at Anfield on Thursday to advance on a massive 11-2 aggregate score. Sparta had no answer to Liverpool’s high pressure.

Salah seized the ball on the right of the area before shooting inside the far post over Sparta goalkeeper Peter Vindahl for his 20th goal of the season, becoming the first Liverpool player to score at least 20 goals in seven straight seasons.

Salah, who injured his hamstring with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations in January, started after having been used as a substitute in both the first leg in Prague and a 1-1 draw with Manchester City on Sunday.

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3____@MoSalah is your Player of the Match _ Sparta Prague _ pic.twitter.com/GDNOMehNIy— Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 14, 2024

Darwin Nunez opened the rout with a clinical low finish seven minutes into the game after scoring two in Prague. A minute later, Salah won the ball on the edge of the box to feed 19-year-old Bobby Clark to score his first senior goal for Liverpool to jump 2-0 up.

Salah then scored before finding Cody Gakpo with a cross to make it 4-0. Dominik Szoboszlai made it 5-1 in the second half with a deflected shot before Gakpo added his second.

Veljko Birmancevic had the lone goal for Sparta.

In Germany, Patrik Schick came off the bench against 10-man Qarabag to score two goals in stoppage time to complete Leverkusen’s 3-2 comeback win and secure a quarterfinal spot for the Bundesliga leader. In a dramatic second half, Abdellah Zoubir and Juninho gave the visitors a 2-0 advantage before Jeremie Frimpong started the comeback.

Leverkusen made the quarters 5-4 on aggregate to extend its unbeaten streak to 37 games across all competitions this season — a German record.

Qarabag’s Elvin Jafarguliyev received a red card in the 62nd when his team was leading 1-0.

AC Milan cruised past 10-man Slavia Prague 3-1 to reach the quarterfinals. Milan advanced 7-3 on aggregate after winning the first leg of the last 16 tie 4-2 at San Siro a week ago.

The seven-time European champion has never won the second-tier Europa League or its predecessor, the UEFA Cup. The competition gives the Italian powerhouse its only realistic chance to win a trophy this season after it was eliminated from the Italian Cup and currently trails Serie A leader Inter Milan by 16 points.

Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rafael Leão put the result in the second leg beyond doubt with first-half goals in Prague.

Pulisic netted from 10 meters with a low shot to open the scoring in the 33rd minute and Loftus-Cheek tapped in the second into an empty net off a precise cross from Theo

Hernández before Leão curled a right-footed drive from outside the area into the top right corner in first-half stoppage time. Slavia got a consolation goal from substitute Matej Jurásek.

Pulisic now has 11 goals in 38 appearances across all competitions in the US international’s first campaign with the Rossoneri to match his most productive season — the 2019-20 campaign at Chelsea. Slavia’s early pressure lost steam after captain Tomáš Holeš received a straight red card in the 20th minute for fouling his counterpart Davide Calabria.

Milan first-choice goalkeeper Mike Maignan was injured early and was replaced by Marco Sportiello.

West Ham made the last eight by routing Freiburg 5-0 at London Stadium.