Feyenoord beat Sparta Prague in comfortable win
Feyenoord boosted their hopes of reaching the knockout stages of the Champions League with a comfortable 4-2 win over Sparta Prague in Rotterdam.
The result leaves the Dutch side 18th in the table but only three points adrift of the top eight places with fixtures against Bayern Munich and Lille still to come.
Goals from Gernot Trauner and Igor Paixao, that were just 89 seconds apart, put the hosts in total control inside 10 minutes.
Anis Hadj Moussa then curled in their third just before the half hour mark as Brian Priske's side threatened to run riot against their Czech opponents.
It was in complete contrast to Feyenoord's previous outing in the competition, where they recovered a three-goal deficit late on to draw in dramatic fashion at Manchester City.
Albion Rrahmani briefly gave the visitors hope of producing a fight back of their own when he scored three minutes before the break, but Mexico forward Santiago Gimenez's close-range flick restored Feyenoord's three-goal cushion just after the hour mark.
Gimenez's effort also meant Feyenoord became the first team to have a goalscorer from four different continents in a single Champions League match.
While Thomas Beelen's 79th minute own goal brought an air of respectability to the scoreline, Feyenoord rarely looked like relinquishing their advantage.
All the pre-match talk had centred on Priske and his former assistant Lars Friis, who took over at Sparta in the summer when his fellow Dane left for the Netherlands.
However, on this evidence Priske will feel vindicated by his move to the Netherlands.
Sparta Prague are four points adrift of the play-off positions in 28th and face Inter Milan and Bayer Leverkusen in their final two fixtures.
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