AZ Alkmaar survived a major scare to book their place in the quarter-finals of the Europa League 2-1 following an incident-packed second leg against Udinese.
AZ led 2-0 from the first leg but saw that advantage wiped out in a nightmare opening 15 minutes where Antonio Di Natale netted twice for Udinese and the visitors reduced to 10 men following Nick Viergever’s early sending off.
However, just as things were looking bleak for the Dutch side, Erik Falkenburg made it 2-1 in the 31st minute to give his side a priceless away goal and leave Udinese needing to net twice more to go through.
That proved to be beyond the hosts, who could not make the most of their man advantage or the second-half penalty miss by AZ midfielder Rasmus Elm as they exited the competition.
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