Thursday’s Europa League Shake-Up Left Five Teams Perfect and AC Milan 24th
Five clubs have nine points from nine, the lead is decided on goals scored, and Thursday's decisive minutes — a red card in Bournemouth, a ruled-out winner in Turin — redrew the race for the top eight.
The 28th minute decided it.
A Bournemouth corner swung in, Mike Maignan shoved Tyler Adams in the face, and the AC Milan captain walked off with a straight red. Marcus Tavernier tucked away the penalty that came with it, and a night that had begun with a VAR-spotted handball and Justin Kluivert’s eighth-minute opener was done as a contest before half-time. By full time it was 3-0, Amine Adli curling in a late free kick to finish the rout. But the scoreboard was the smaller story. Thursday ended with five clubs on nine points from nine, the lead decided on goals scored, and Milan, seven-time champions of Europe, sitting 24th, on the last playoff ticket in the competition.
Bournemouth collected the night’s records like souvenirs. Maignan became the first Milan goalkeeper ever sent off in a major European game. Kluivert scored against Milan 31 years and 151 days after his father Patrick’s winner against them in the 1995 final. The 3-0 made them the first English club to open a European campaign with three straight wins since 1973 — when the club that did it was Sunderland, 53 years ago. The Vitality crowd spent the second half chanting “Ruben Amorim, it’s happening again” at the former Manchester United manager, whose miserable return to England ended in a hammering.
Sunderland needed 78 seconds in Poznan. Timur Tutierov, 21 and making his third competitive start, headed in Nilson Angulo’s cross after a dreadful pass from Lech keeper Mateusz Lis: the fastest goal of this season’s competition. Sunderland hit the post through Malick Fofana, forced a string of saves from Lis, then let substitute Leo Bengtsson smash a 70th-minute equaliser in from a corner. “I’m unbelievably proud of him,” defender Luke O’Nien said of Tutierov afterward. “To see him score, for me it’s no surprise. I see how hard he works every day, he goes round me every day in training.” The point keeps Sunderland unbeaten, but they’re ninth now, outside the top eight on goal difference.
Turin got the cruellest finish. Juventus led through Zeki Celik inside five minutes, trailed by the break after Mousa Al-Tamari’s equaliser and Boulaye Dia’s penalty, and levelled through Nick Woltemade’s 67th-minute spot kick, struck after he’d taken the ball off Randal Kolo Muani. Jhon Lucumi thought he’d won it in the 90th minute. VAR ruled it out for offside. They sit seventh on seven points, with their first dropped points of the European campaign.
Mika Baur gave Celtic the lead two minutes into the second half at Parkhead, sweeping in a deflected cross. Then Celta Vigo right-back Javi Rodriguez scored twice in three minutes, a header and an unstoppable drive, and Celtic had lost 2-1. They sit 35th of 36, pointless after three games, a position no club has ever qualified from in this format. “I’d like to say tonight’s result was a surprise…” wrote Chris Sutton on social media. Martin O’Neill, booked on the touchline, blamed referee Georgi Kabakov but admitted: “Remarkably, we are still in with a chance – but we have to win at home and away.”
Crystal Palace twice led Besiktas in Istanbul and still couldn’t win. Yeremy Pino and Jean-Philippe Mateta scored four minutes apart after the break, Mateta’s first goal since last season’s Conference League final, before substitute Junior Olaitan levelled at 2-2 in the 73rd minute. Umit Akdag saw red four minutes later for a lunge on Jorgen Strand Larsen, but the ten men held on. Palace stay 15th on four points. Besiktas climb to eighth, the last automatic qualifying place.
The five perfect clubs tell the night’s story in miniature. Benfica lead on goals scored, ten to Bayer Leverkusen‘s eight, after Jonas Hofmann’s quickfire first-half double sank OFI Crete. Olympiacos needed a late own goal to beat Sparta Prague. Ferencvaros thrashed Torreense 4-1. Union SG’s 4-0 dismissal of Hapoel Be’er Sheva carried them to sixth, inside the top eight. At the bottom, four clubs have nothing: Plzen, Marseille, beaten 1-0 at Sturm Graz for a third straight defeat, Celtic, and Ararat-Armenia, last on goal difference after conceding eleven in three games.
