Brighton and West Ham seal spots in Europa League knockout round
LONDON: Brighton booked their place in the Europa League knockout stage with a 1-0 win at AEK Athens, while West Ham also advanced after a late Tomas Soucek goal against Backa Topola on Thursday. Roberto De Zerbi’s side are competing in Europe for the first time in their history and the Seagulls’ adventure will continue into the new year thanks to Joao Pedro’s winner in Greece. Brighton sit two points above Marseille at the top of Group B, with the French club able to regain pole position if they beat Ajax later on Thursday. Europa League group winners go through to the last 16 automatically, while the runners-up play in a two-legged knockout round play-off in February against a team who finish third in a Champions League group. Albion will vie for first place in the group when Marseille visit the Amex Stadium in the final round of fixtures in December. The Greeks laid seige to Brighton’s goal for a period in the first half, with Orbelin Pineda denied by keeper Bart Verbruggen. Steven Zuber became engaged in a virtually one-on-one battle with the Seagulls as the Swiss international’s effort was tipped over by Verbruggen. Zuber flashed a header wide from the resulting corner, then evaded Joel Veltman and unloaded a powerful shot that was deflected onto the post by Lewis Dunk before Mijat Gacinovic put the rebound wide. Gacinovic’s strike was well stopped by Verbruggen, whose heroics laid the foundation for Brighton to snatch the lead. Damian Szymanski fouled Joao Pedro and the Brazilian striker picked himself up to slot home the penalty in the 55th minute. That made the Brighton man the top scorer in the Europa League with five goals, three of those having been penalties against AEK Athens. AEK’s fate was sealed when
