Edu advances Rangers to Europa 3rd round

Goals by American midfielder Maurice Edu and New Jersey-born Giuseppe Rossi helped their teams advance to the third round of the Europa League on Thursday night.

Edu scored in the second minute of second-half injury time, giving Glasgow Rangers a 2-2 tie at Sporting Lisbon. Edu bundled the ball in from 1 yard after David Healy slid the ball across the goal mouth, tying the home-and-home, total-goals series 2-2. Rangers advanced because of a 2-1 advantage in away goals.

"To be honest, I didn't see anybody waiting for the ball but myself, even though there were others wanting to put it in," Edu told Rangers website. "Luckily, I was in the right place at the right time to tap it in."

El Hadji Diouf scored on a 20th-minute header for Rangers, but the hosts took a 2-1 lead on goals by Pedro Mendes in the 42nd and Yannick Djalo in the 83rd. Rangers advanced to a third-round matchup with PSV Eindhoven.

"Tonight showed just how much it does mean to us," Edu said.

Rossi scored the go-ahead goal two minutes into first-half injury time, helping Villarreal defeat visiting Napoli 2-1 following a 0-0 tie in the first leg. Rossi's goal, which deflected off Juan Camilo Zuniga and looped over goalkeeper Morgan de Sanctis, was his 21st this season and sixth in the Europa League.

Marek Hamsik had put Napoli ahead in the 18th minute, but Nilmar tied the score in the 42nd. Both Yellow Submarine goals came off feeds from Borja Valero. Villarreal meets Bayer Leverkusen in the third round.

Liverpool and Manchester City also reached the last 16 of Europe's second-tier club competition.

Dirk Kuyt scored on an 86th-minute header to give host Liverpool a 1-0 aggregate win over Sparta Prague.

"It was a hard game and we should have finished it off earlier, but at the end of the day a win is all that counts," Kuyt said.

Manchester City defeated visiting Aris 3-0 on two goals first-half goals by Edin Dzeko and a second-half goal by Yaya Toure following a 0-0 tie in Greece.

With American Oguchi Onyewu at left back, the Netherlands' Twente tied visiting Rubin Kazan of Russia to advance on 4-2 aggregate.

Also advancing were Ajax, Benfica, Braga, Dynamo Kiev, Paris Saint-Germain, Spartak Moscow and 2008 champion Zenit St. Petersburg.