Europa League 4/8/2011.

The Portuguese sides still look fantastic as Porto demolished Spartak Moskva 5-1 with Falcao opening the scoring in the 37th minute and striking twice more to complete a remarkable hat-trick. Silvestre Varela struck a goal himself in the 65th while Maicon slotted home in the 70th to make it 3-0 before Moskva could reply. Their reply came in the 71st minute though, through Kirill Kombarov who made it 3-1 with 19 minutes to go. Falcao then decided to widen the margin, striking in the 84th and 92nd minutes to make it 5-1 when the referee blew the final whistle. Meanwhile, in Lisbon, Benfica showed PSV Eindhoven who was boss in a 4-1 stampede of goals. Pablo Aimar struck first, in the 37th minute, while Eduardo Salvio struck in the 45th minute to make it 2-0 at the half. Salvio then struck again in the 52nd to make it 3-0. PSV then decided to show up with Zakaria Labyad subbing on in the 78th minute and scoring two minutes later! So, with 3-1 PSV still has a bit of a shot right? Nope. Javier Saviola struck in the fourth minute of stoppage time in the second half to make it a 4-1 game as full time was called. Now over to another Portuguese clash, where Braga went to the home of Dynamo Kyiv and left with a 1-1 scoreline! The fact that the Iberian side were able to go to Eastern Europe and draw a match against reasonably talented opposition is just fantastic. Andriy Yarmolenko put Kyiv ahead in the 6th minute, then they lost it to an own goal from Oleh Gusev in the 13th minute which is all that Braga needed when they return to Portugal. Also, Dynamo Kyiv will be without Andriy Shevchenko who subbed on in the 46th minute, and was dismissed with a second yellow in the 62nd! So, it'll be interesting to see how the Portuguese manage the game from here on in the second leg. Finally, The other Dutch side Twente did not look good today when they went to Spain and were spanked 5-1 by Villarreal. Carlos Marchena opened the scoring for the Yellow Submarines in the 23rd minute while Borja Valero added his own to the tally on the score sheet in the 43rd. Nilmar then struck his first goal of the game in the first minute of stoppage time of the first half to make it 3-0 at the half. Giuseppe Rossi then slotted home in the 55th and Nilmar scored his second of the day in the 81st to make it 5-0 with 9 minutes or so to go. Then, almost as an afterthought, Marc Janko struck in the first minute of stoppage time in the second half to make it 5-1 just before the ref ended the match.