Europa League: Lille Beat Milan 3-0
Lille’s Yusuf Yazici brought AC Milan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic down to earth with a bump on Thursday with all three goals in a 3-0 Europa League win over the seven-time European champions.
The 39-year-old Ibrahimovic had been one of the stories of the early part of the season after firing seven goals in four league games to take the Italian giants top of Serie A, but it was Yazici, who is yet to start in Ligue 1 this season, who stole the show with his hat-trick at the San Siro.
Yazici’s goals put Lille, who are unbeaten in all competitions this season, one point ahead of Milan who lost for the first time since football returned from the first coronavirus lockdown.
Celtic are bottom of Group H after being hammered 4-1 at home by Sparta Prague.
“I thought we could be more dangerous, but against such a fast team once we went 2-0 behind the game got complicated. They punished us for every mistake,” said Milan coach Stefano Pioli after his side’s 24-match unbeaten run came to an end.
“(Ibrahimovic) was not satisfied with the team’s performance nor his own.”
Yazici, 23, opened the scoring when he won and scored a soft-looking penalty in the 22nd minute.
He doubled the away side’s lead nine minutes after the break when his hopeful strike bobbled over Gianluigi Donnarumma’s early dive and then twisted the knife three minutes later when he confidently finished a counter attack.
Incredibly it was Yazici’s second Europa League hat-trick of the season following his treble in Lille’s 4-1 win over Sparta Prague in the opening round of fixtures, taking his European tally to six.
