Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest both won their matches on Thursday night, setting up an all-English semi-final in the Europa League.
Villa crushed Bologna 4-0 at home. This gave them a big 7-1 win over the two legs. Ollie Watkins scored first in the 16th minute with a simple tap-in after a smooth team move.
The goal took his total for Villa to 100 and made him their top scorer in Europe. Morgan Rogers missed a penalty, but Emiliano Buendía scored straight after with a strong shot. Rogers then scored with a powerful drive before half-time. Ezri Konsa finished the game with a great volley in the 89th minute.
At the same time, Nottingham Forest beat Porto 1-0 at home to go through 2-1 on aggregate. Porto went down to 10 men early when their defender got a red card for a bad foul on Chris Wood. Morgan Gibbs-White scored soon after with a shot that took a lucky deflection. He celebrated by holding up a shirt for his teammate Elliot Anderson, who could not play because his mother had died.
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In the other matches, Freiburg moved into the semi-finals for the first time. They beat Celta Vigo 3-1 to win 6-1 overall. Sporting Braga also advanced. They came from behind to beat Real Betis 4-2, winning 5-3 on aggregate.
Villa will now play Forest in the semi-finals. Unai Emery has won the Europa League four times, so he brings extensive experience.
In the Premier League, Aston Villa sit in 4th place with 55 points from 32 games. They push hard for a Champions League spot next season. Nottingham Forest sit in 16th place with 33 points from 32 games and fight hard to avoid relegation. The two English teams sit 12 places apart in the table, but they now face each other in a big European battle.
