Hagi inspires a brilliant Rangers fightback
Jota and Kamada score Europa League hat-tricks
Diogo Jota of Wolves and Daichi Kamada of Eintracht Frankfurt hit hattricks, but the man at the heart of the most remarkable Europa League display on Thursday night had a familiar name: Ianis Hagi, who inspired an unlikely
Rangers fightback. In the first leg of the round-of-32, Wolves beat Espanyol 4-0, Eintracht beat Salzburg 4-1 and Rangers beat Braga 3-2 at Ibrox.
Arsenal won 1-0 at Olympiakos and, in early games, Manchester United drew 1-1 away to Club Brugge and Celtic’s visit to Copenhagen finished with the same score.
In a battle between two European heavyweights Bayer Leverkusen held off Porto 2-1.
Jota, who hit three in the last pool game in November and had not scored since, struck the first from close range, the second from a narrow angle and the third from outside the area. Ruben Neves hit a typically spectacular volley and Wolves crushed the club struggling at the bottom of La Liga.
Kamada shows form
In Frankfurt, Kamada, a 23-year-old Japanese midfielder, hit the first after 12 minutes. Two minutes before the break he broke from the halfway line to score a second. He added a third with a header in the 53rd minute. He then turned provider, starting the move which ended with Filip Kostic netting Frankfurt’s fourth.
Kamada has not scored in 17 Bundesliga games this season, but Thursday’s hat-trick gave him six in the Europa League, all in his last three games and scored over a span of 178 minutes.