Braga put an end to Fenerbahçe hopes
Thursday, March 17, 2016
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Braga 4-1 Fenerbahçe (agg: 4-2)
The Portuguese side made made it through to the quarter-finals with victory over a Yellow Canaries team that finished with eight men.
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- Ahmed Hassan strikes to draw Braga level on aggregate
- Alper Potuk crashes in to level on the night with his first competition goal
- Mehmet Topal sent off after conceding penalty, which Braga's Josué converts
- Nikola Stoiljković and Rafa Silva score again to put Braga 4-1 ahead
- Quarter-final draw streamed live on UEFA.com from 13.00CET on Friday
Braga overturned a 1-0 first-leg deficit, making it to the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals with a 4-1 success against Fenerbahçe.
Egyptian forward Ahmed Hassan got the opener for Paulo Fonseca's team, calmly slotting in from Nikola Vukčević's pass. Robin van Persie came close to equalising shortly afterwards when his header rattled the woodwork, but Fenerbahçe had their away goal seconds before half-time as Alper Potuk smashed in. Again, Van Persie might have done better with a close-range header, yet his effort struck defender Willy Boly and fell invitingly for midfielder Alper to volley in.
Boly had little luck at the other end of the pitch, failing to convert a free header from five metres at the beginning of the second half. A pivotal moment then came as Mehmet Topal – scorer of the first leg's only goal – received a second yellow card for handling a Rafa Silva shot in the area, with Josué converting the resulting spot kick.
If Vítor Pereira's side were still ahead in the tie on away goals at that point, their advantage slipped away five minutes later when – like Hassan before him – Nikola Stoiljković turned in his third goal in this season's competition. The Portuguese club then sealed victory with Rafa Silva firing in a fourth – a neat finish across the face of goal – with Alper and Volkan Şen subsequently dismissed for challenges in the closing stages.