Spartak snatch victory at Basel

FC Spartak Moskva may have taken a significant step towards the round of 16 after recovering from going 2-0 down to secure an unlikely 3-2 UEFA Europa League victory at FC Basel 1893.

Thorsten Fink's side looked to be cruising after Alexander Frei and Marco Streller struck within the space of five first-half minutes, but Dmitri Kombarov brought the visitors back into the game with a goal just after the hour. With Xherdan Shaqiri dismissed soon after Artem Dzyuba's equaliser, 18-year-old substitute Jano Ananidze arrowed home a last-ditch winner for Valeri Karpin's side.

At the interval, Basel looked to be well on top of a game which brought together two sides who had finished third in their respective UEFA Champions League groups. Frei broke the deadlock on 36 minutes, nodding past Andriy Dykan after Shaqiri's corner was directed on towards him at the near post. Five minutes later it was 2-0 after Streller got his head to another Shaqiri corner which Dykan misjudged.

Spartak started to reduce the arrears on 61 minutes. Captain Alex battled to the edge of the box and let fly, with his shot cannoning back off a defender into the path of Kombarov, who steered the ball across Franco Costanza and in off his left-hand post. Within ten minutes the scores were level, Dzyuba collecting Alex's ball, controlling on his thigh and flicking it in with the toe of his boot.

Shaqiri saw red on 78 minutes, but it looked like Basel might cling on for the draw until two minutes into added time when Alex was presented with a free-kick on the edge of the box. Rather than shoot, he touched the ball to Ananidze, whose low shot crept around the wall and in off the foot of Costanzo's right-hand post.