Story highlights
Tottenham Hotspur exit Europa League despite 4-0 win over Shamrock Rovers
10-man Rubin Kazan's 1-1 draw at PAOK Salonika secures their passage
Standard Liege players wear black armbands after shooting tragedy in Belgian city
Bruges and Braga qualify ahead of Birmingham in Group H
Tottenham Hotspur secured an emphatic 4-0 win over Shamrock Rovers Thursday but still failed to make the last 32 of the Europa League.
Rubin Kazan’s 1-1 draw at Group A winners PAOK Salonika gave the Russian side the point they needed to progress to the knockout stages as runners-up.
Tottenham, mounting a strong challenge in the English Premier League this season, had gone into the match in Dublin needed Rubin to lose in Greece while scoring five goals themselves against their Irish part-time opponents.
Leading 3-0 at halftime and with Rubin losing 1-0 and down to 10 men, Tottenham were on course for an unlikely passage but Rubin’s Nelson Valdez equalized Vierinha’s penalty for PAOK just after the break.
Steven Pienaar, Andros Townsend, with a superb strike and Jermain Defoe scored Tottenham’s first half goals but Shamrock improved after the interval and might have pulled one back.
Substitute Harry Kane added a late fourth for Tottenham.
In other Europa League action Thursday, Standard Liege players wore black armbands against FC Copenhagen as a mark of respect to the three people killed by a gunman in the Belgian city this week.
The Group B winners went on to secure a 1-0 victory with Michy Batshuayi scoring the only goal in the 31st minute while Hannover, who had already sealed second spot, beat Vorskla 3-1 with goals from Konstantin
Rausch, Didier Konan and Artur Sobiech.
In Group C, Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven owed their 2-1 win over Rapid Bucharest to late goals from Stanislav Manolev and Tim Matavz.
Bruges and Braga shared a 1-1 draw in Group H to go through ahead of Birmingham, despite the English second-tier side’s 1-0 win over NK Maribor with Adam Rooney on target.
