Malen scores twice and hit by object as Aston Villa beats Young Boys in Europa League

Donyell Malen scored twice for Aston Villa in a 2-1 win over Young Boys on Thursday in a Europa League game that was temporarily halted because of crowd trouble that included the forward being hit by an object thrown from the stands.

Malen appeared to be struck by a plastic cup after his 27th-minute goal — leaving a small cut on his head — and Young Boys fans again pelted the Villa players with thrown objects after the Dutch forward doubled the lead in the 42nd. Some away supporters then clashed with police, leading to the game being halted for about five minutes.

Young Boys captain Loris Bento pleaded with the fans to calm down and dozens of police officers were deployed in riot gear in front of the away end for the rest of the game, with no further incidents after halftime.

After a slow start to the season, Villa now has four straight wins in all competitions and a fourth victory from five in the Europa League.

Roma bounced back from two home losses as Neil El Aynaoui struck in the seventh minute and substitute Stephen El Shaarawy added another late to secure a 2-1 win over Midtjylland at Stadio Olimpico.

Roma has nine points from five games after earlier home defeats to Lille and Viktoria Plzeň.

Midtjylland, which had won its first four games to surprisingly top the standings, pulled a goal back through substitute Paulinho in the 86th.

Also, Lille routed Dinamo Zagreb 4-0, 10-man Fenerbahce was held 1-1 by Ferencváros and Freiburg drew 0-0 at Plzeň.

Porto scores after 19 seconds

Gabriel Veiga gave Porto the lead against Nice just 19 seconds into their match from an attack right from the kick-off.

It was the sixth fastest goal in the Europa League, according to UEFA.

Veiga burst into the area to double the advantage after half an hour. Samu made it 3-0 from the spot.

Nice remains without a point in the competition.

Rematches of European Cup finals

Celtic came from a goal down to win 3-1 at Feyenoord in a rematch of the 1970 European Cup final won by the Dutch side.

Reo Hatate set up Hyunjun Yang to equalize for Celtic from a tight angle. Hatate put the hosts ahead still in the first half from the edge of the box after Daizen Maeda applied pressure to block a clearance. As the hosts pushed for an equalizer, substitute Benjamin Nygren replied with the third goal late.

Ayase Ueda opened the scoring early for Feyenoord.

Later Thursday, Nottingham Forest hosts Sweden’s Malmö FF, which was a semi-professional team in 1979 when it lost the European Cup final 1-0 in Munich to the English side, which also went on to retain the title the following year.

Forest has invited players from both 1979 teams and they will be greeting the fans before the Europa League match at the City Ground.

Forward Trevor Francis, who headed the only goal of the game in the final 46 years ago, died in 2023.

Forest is boosted by a 3-0 triumph over Liverpool at Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday and is seeking a second victory in this season’s Europa League, under new coach Sean Dyche. Malmö is yet to win.

In other games, Real Betis meets Utrecht, Maccabi Tel Aviv plays Lyon.

In the third-tier Conference League, Crystal Palace travels to Strasbourg and Fiorentina faces AEK Athens.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer