Soccer Football - Europa League - Round of 16 - Second Leg - Slavia Prague v AC Milan - Fortuna Arena, Prague, Czech Republic - March 14, 2024 AC Milan players pose for a team group photo before the match REUTERS/David W Cerny
PRAGUE (Reuters) -AC Milan eased into the Europa League quarter-finals with a 3-1 victory at 10-man Slavia Prague on Thursday to secure a 7-3 aggregate win as West Ham United crushed German side Freiburg in a record triumph.
Slavia's hopes of swiftly closing the gap from the 4-2 loss in the first leg were shattered after 20 minutes when captain Tomas Holes received a red card for a stamp on Milan's Davide Calabria.
Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rafael Leao scored in the first half to put seven-times European champions Milan in complete control of the tie.
"Today, we controlled the game more, scored three goals, and the course of the match was quite clear," Milan manager Stefano Pioli said.
The second half was uneventful until six minutes from time when Matej Jurasek claimed a consolation goal for Slavia.
Milan faced a concern as keeper Mike Maignan was forced off the pitch early due to a knee injury.
"He felt a pain in his knee, he was already better now. It doesn't seem like anything too worrying, let's see how she reacts tomorrow," Pioli said.
West Ham overwhelmed Freiburg 5-0 thanks to goals from Lucas Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen, Aaron Cresswell and a brace from Mohammed Kudus to claim their biggest win in a major European competition and send them into the last eight 5-1 on aggregate.
David Moyes, in his 250th match as West Ham manager, commended his team.
"We looked like scoring tonight and looked the bigger threat. Obviously, we've got two or three exceptional individual players who helped us get goals. It was a brilliant performance for us to win by five," Moyes told UEFA.com.
Benfica clinched their quarter-final spot with a 1-0 victory over Scottish side Rangers courtesy of Rafa Silva's strike in the 66th minute which secured a 3-2 aggregate win.
Despite Villarreal's 3-1 home victory over Olympique de Marseille, featuring goals from Etienne Capoue, Alexander Sorloth and Yerson Mosquera, the French side secured a 5-3 aggregate win thanks to a stoppage-time strike from Jonathan Clauss.
(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk, additional reporting by Angelica Medina, editing by Ed Osmond)
