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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAston Villa’s Ollie Watkins, left, celebrates scoring during the Europa League soccer match between Bologna and Aston Villa in Bologna, Italy, Thursday April 9, 2026. (Massimo Paolone\/LaPresse via AP)<\/p>\n
Jonathan Rowe reduced the deficit to one for host Bologna in the final minute before Watkins added his second in stoppage time.<\/p>\n
Villa has reached the last eight in Europe for the third straight year and is fourth in the Premier League, on course to qualify for the Champions League next season.<\/p>\n
The return legs take place next Thursday.<\/p>\n
Porto held by Forest<\/p>\n
In a matchup of former European champions, Nottingham Forest took home a promising 1-1 draw from Porto.<\/p>\n
Porto transformed early pressure into a goal after William Gomes tapped in a low cross from Gabriel Veiga.<\/p>\n
It was all square just two minutes later when Porto\u2019s Martim Fernandes equalized with an own goal. The right back was almost at the center line when he sent a pass back to Diogo Costa but the goalkeeper was out of position and the ball ended up in the net.<\/p>\n
Forest failed to score despite a return of striker Chris Wood from injury to the staring lineup for the first time since October.<\/p>\n
Before the two meet at the City Ground in the second leg next week, relegation-threatened Forest hosts Villa in another crucial Premier League game on Sunday.<\/p>\n
In the league phase, Forest beat Porto 2-0 at home.<\/p>\n
Freiburg flying<\/p>\n
Freiburg made the most of its first quarterfinal game in European competitions by beating Celta Vigo 3-0.<\/p>\n
In a dream start, captain Vincenzo Grifo fired Freiburg ahead in the 10th minute, and Jan-Niklas Beste doubled the advantage in the first half.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Matthias Ginter finished the scoring in the second half.<\/p>\n
Crystal Palace wins in Conference League<\/p>\n
In the quarterfinal first leg between two of the favorites of the third-tier competition, Crystal Palace beat Fiorentina 3-0. Jean-Philippe Mateta, Tyrick Mitchell and Isma\u00efla Sarr all found the net at Selhurst Park.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ollie Watkins scored twice and Aston Villa beat Bologna 3-1 to move a step closer to the Europa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-593411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}