Sportstar·India·Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 04:14 AM UTC

Fleetwood stuns Arsenal in League Cup shootout, Lazio routs Sassuolo – European football roundup

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Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta surrounded by reporters after the match against Fleetwood. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta surrounded by reporters after the match against Fleetwood. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Lazio saw two penalties saved but still managed to rout 10-man Sassuolo 6-2 to remain top of Serie A on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, Espanyol suffered a shock loss at fourth-tier Sestao River in the Spanish Cup, with its coach quickly paying the price, while Premier League champion Arsenal was beaten by fourth-tier Fleetwood Town in a penalty shootout in the English League Cup.

Elversberg and Mainz were dumped out of the German Cup by second-division teams but Leipzig narrowly avoided humiliation at third-tier Rot-Weiss Essen.

Sassuolo goalkeeper Stefano Turati saved two penalties but couldn’t prevent his team from falling to a hefty loss.

READ: UEFA Champions League: Lens fans banned from Liverpool game for throwing flares that stopped play

The side was already 3-1 down when midfielder Kristian Thorstvedt was shown a straight red card in the 31st minute for a horrid tackle on Mattia Zaccagni, who was fortunate to escape without serious injury.

Romano Floriani Mussolini, the great-grandson of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, scored Lazio’s third goal.

Sebastiano Esposito managed to pull one back, but Zaccagni restored Lazio’s two-goal advantage on the stroke of halftime.

Tijjani Noslin scored twice in the second half, while Turati stopped spotkicks from Zaccagni and Davide Frattesi.

Lazio's Tijjani Noslin, second from right, celebrates after scoring.

Lazio's Tijjani Noslin, second from right, celebrates after scoring. | Photo Credit: AP

Lazio moved three points clear of Inter Milan, which visits bottom club Venezia on Wednesday.

Roma needed two late goals to beat Cagliari 4-2 and move back to within four points of Lazio. It was Cagliari’s third straight loss, following an impressive start to the season.

Como also left it late, with all its goals coming after 80 minutes, to secure a 3-1 win at Torino.

Espanyol fires coach Manolo González after shock Spanish Cup exit

Espanyol coach Manolo González was fired less than two hours after his side lost 4-3 at Sestao River, after extra time, in the first round of the Spanish Cup.

Coach Manolo Gonzalez has been sacked by Espanyol. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Espanyol needed a last-gasp penalty to force extra time, and, although it then took the lead in the 96th minute, Sestao River levelled two minutes later, and home defender Jon Rojo scored the winner in stoppage time.

Arsenal embarrassed in penalty-shootout loss to Fleetwood

Fourth-tier Fleetwood beat Arsenal 5-3 in a penalty shootout to reach the quarterfinals of the English League Cup after Bruno Guimaraes had his attempt saved.

The match, which had finished 1-1 in regulation, saw 16-year-old prodigy Max Dowman sent off for kicking out at an opponent in the 85th.

Eighty-four positions separate the teams in the English football pyramid.

Earlier, a drone hovering above the stadium caused a delay in play inside two minutes of the match.

Arsenal had just been awarded a free kick when the referee spotted the drone and temporarily stopped play, leading to jeers from some fans inside Fleetwood’s home ground, Highbury Stadium.

The delay lasted nearly eight minutes, with the referee speaking to the stadium safety officer, both managers and then some of the players before finally restarting the game.

The score was 0-0 at the time.

Baumgartner spares Leipzig’s blushes in German Cup

Essen’s second-round match against Leipzig had hit the headlines even before kickoff after an act of sabotage saw concrete poured around the gate to the away end at the stadium to seal it shut — it was opened well before supporters started to arrive.

On the field, Essen almost pulled off a shock. Lucas Brumme took advantage of a terrible back pass by Castello Lukeba and a slip by goalkeeper Ørjan Nyland to fire Essen into a ninth-minute lead.

Essen’s chances appeared to grow when Leipzig midfielder Nicolas Seiwald was sent off shortly before halftime following two yellow cards in the space of 10 minutes.

However, substitute Christoph Baumgartner scored two late goals to turn the game around for Leipzig, which won 2-1.

Elversberg, which is enjoying an impressive Bundesliga debut, lost 2-0 at home to Darmstadt. Mainz lost by the same scoreline at Bochum.

Borussia Dortmund prepared for Saturday’s top-of-the-table showdown at Bayern Munich by snatching a 3-2 victory over Weder Bremen.

Published on Oct 28, 2026

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