LONDON (AP) — Anderlecht and Hapoel Tel Aviv reached the European Champions League playoffs with comfortable wins Tuesday night.
Hapoel Tel Aviv scored three times in the first 35 minutes to beat Aktobe 3-1 and advance past the Kazakh champion 3-2 in the home-and-home, total-goals series. Eran Zehavi, Ben Sahar and an own-goal by Khalifa Elhadj Ba put the Israeli team in control before Murat Tleshev scored a last-minute goal for Aktobe.
Anderlecht defeated The New Saints 3-0. Seventeen-year-old forward Romelu Lukaku scored twice in six minutes after coming on as a second-half substitute to lead the Belgian club to a 6-1 aggregate win. American midfielder Sacha Kljestan started for Anderlecht.
The pair will be in Friday’s playoff draw.
Rapid Vienna beat Beroe Stara Zagora 3-1 to advance 4-1 in the second-tier Europa League, where Liverpool and Juventus both take 2-0 advantages into their second legs at home Thursday. Liverpool plays Macedonia’s Rabotnicki and Juve meets Ireland’s Shamrock Rovers.
