Roma, Bilbao, Eindhoven make Europa League last 32
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Roma, Athletic Bilbao, PSV Eindhoven and Sporting Lisbon made the knockout phase of the Europa League soccer tournament on Thursday.
At home, Roma beat Basel 2-1. After Benjamin Huggel headed the Swiss side into an 18th-minute lead, Roma leveled with a Francesco Totti penalty and went ahead through Mirko Vucinic just before the hour.
Roma leads Basel by a point in Group E, with English Premier League Fulham a point behind the Swiss side after beating CSKA Sofia 1-0 in west London.
Goals from Fernando Llorente and Mikel San Jose earned Bilbao a2-0 win at Austria Vienna, taking it into the last 32 alongside Group L leader Werder Bremen, who beat Portuguese side Nacional 4-1.
An injury-time own goal from Tomas Repka gave PSV Eindhoven a 1-0 victory over Sparta Prague, enabling the Dutch club to the top spot in Group K.
FC Copenhagen levelled with Sparta on seven points by beating CFR Cluj 2-0, eliminating the Romanians, and the Danish side will go through if it avoids defeat at home to Sparta in its last game.
Group D leaders Sporting Lisbon needed one point to advance. At home against Heerenveen, they waited until the first minute of injury time for Leonardo Grimi to secure a 1-1 draw after Oussama Assaidi scored the 47th-minute opener.
And Grimi's goal also enabled Hertha Berlin to beat Heerenveen for the second place after it won 1-0 over Latvian FK Ventspils.
French Ligue 1 side Toulouse maintained its hope of a berth in the next round with a 1-0 home win over Partizan Belgrade in GroupJ thanks to a 54th-minute strike from forward Daniel Braaten, moved a point behind second-placed Club Brugge of Belgium in GroupJ who drew 0-0 at with already-qualified defending champions Shakhtar Donetsk.
Panathinaikos could have progressed with a draw at qualified Galatasaray of Turkey in Group F but lost 1-0.
Everton, Benfica, Hamburg, Fenerbahce, Red Bull Salzburg and Villareal all confirmed their places in the knockout phase on Wednesday.
The top two teams from each of the 12 groups go through to the round of 32, where they will be joined by the third-placed teams from the Champions League group phase, which include five-time European champions Liverpool.
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