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An early penalty by Alexis Mac Allister and a Darwin Nunez brace helped Liverpool to thrash Sparta Prague 5-1 in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie on Thursday.<\/p>\nAn early penalty by Alexis Mac Allister and a Darwin Nunez brace helped Liverpool to thrash Sparta Prague 5-1 in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Liverpool, who qualified for the knockout rounds as group winners, dominated the game and were up 3-0 at the break, edging closer to the quarter-finals.<\/strong>After Mac Allister was taken down inside the box, the Argentine gave Liverpool the lead from the spot in the sixth minute. He sent Sparta keeper Peter Jensen the wrong way as he fired into the bottom corner.Nunez doubled the advantage from a distance in the 25th,\u00a0squeezing in his shot\u00a0just under the bar to notch up the 1,000th goal during Juergen Klopp\u2019s tenure.The Uruguay forward thenmade\u00a0it 3-0 in first-half stoppage time\u00a0after he received a lofted pass from Mac Allister to slot home from the edge of the box.Liverpool substitute Conor Bradley scored an own goal just after the break but the visitors restored their three-goal lead in the 53rd minute through Luis Diaz.Substitute Mohamed Salah thought he had extended Liverpool\u2019s lead to 5-1 but his goal was ruled out by VAR for offside.However,\u00a0Dominik Szoboszlai\u00a0added\u00a0a fifth in\u00a0injury time.In the other early kickoff, AS Roma secured a 4-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion. Paulo Dybala opened the scoring in the 12th minute and Romelu Lukaku doubled their lead before the break following a one-on-one with goalkeeper Jason Steele.Defender Gianluca Mancini made it 3-0 for the hosts in the 64th minute before midfielder Bryan Cristante completed the rout four minutes later with a header.Runaway Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen came from two goals down to rescue a 2-2 draw at Azerbaijan\u2019s Qarabag with goals from Florian Wirtz and Patrik Schick.Sporting Lisbon and Atalanta played out a 1-1 draw on Wednesday with forward Gianluca Scamacca scoring before halftime to cancel out Paulinho\u2019s opener for the Portuguese hosts.The match took place one day ahead of the Europa League\u2019s Thursday schedule as UEFA safety rules do not permit teams from the same city to host games on the same day.<\/strong> Benfica take on Rangers in Lisbon in a later kickoff.The second legs will be played on March 14.Follow the An early penalty by Alexis Mac Allister and a Darwin Nunez brace helped Liverpool to defeat Sparta Prague 5-1 in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie. Liverpool led 3-0 at halftime. Mac Allister scored from the penalty spot in the sixth minute, Nunez scored twice, once from a distance in the 25th minute and again in first-half stoppage time. Liverpool’s Luis Diaz and Dominik Szoboszlai also scored, while Liverpool conceded an own goal by Conor Bradley. In other matches, AS Roma won 4-0 against Brighton & Hove Albion, Bayer Leverkusen drew 2-2 with Qarabag, and Sporting Lisbon drew 1-1 with Atalanta. The second legs of these matches are scheduled for March 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[209,748,3,1036,250,572,1088,389,1089],"class_list":["post-3571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-box","tag-brighton","tag-cyprus","tag-europa-league","tag-google","tag-injury","tag-liverpool","tag-rescue","tag-sparta-prague"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n
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