Feyenoord 4-2 Sparta Prague: Quick start eases hosts to win

Two early goals laid the foundation for Feyenoord to boost their Champions League hopes with a comfortable 4-2 win over Sparta Prague on Wednesday.

Two goals in 90 seconds from Gernot Trauner and Igor Paixao gave the Eredivisie side a dream start, with Anis Hadj Moussa and Santiago Gimenez adding the goals that keep them on course for a spot in the knockout stages.

The Dutch hosts needed only eight minutes to get on the scoresheet from a corner with Trauner’s downward header wrong-footing Sparta goalkeeper Peter Vindahl.

The second came when Feyenoord’s pressing stripped Kaan Kairinen of possession, and Paixao ran from the halfway line before bending the ball wide of the goalkeeper.

Hadj Moussa scored a stunner 30 minutes in, cutting inside from the right to fire a left-footed shot into the top corner. Feyenoord then failed to clear a long throw that was flicked onto Albion Rrahmani at the back post to make it 3-1 in the 43rd minute.

Gimenez restored the comfortable margin when he took advantage of a defensive slip to bundle the ball over the line from close range just after the hour mark.

Meanwhile, Sparta’s second goal came from a cross in the 79th minute, which was steered into his own net by a sliding Thomas Beelen.

Feyenoord moved on to 10 points, while Slavia suffered a fourth defeat in six group games and have a tough task to avoid elimination.

Three #UCL points at home #feyacs pic.twitter.com/DUWd1GOLhp

— Feyenoord Rotterdam (@Feyenoord) December 11, 2024

Data Debrief: A happy reunion

The match saw Brian Priske reunited with the team he took to the double in the Czech Republic last season, with his former assistant Lars Friis now in charge at Sparta.

Only Barcelona (five) have scored three or more goals in more different Champions League games this season than Feyenoord (four), who netted three first-half goals and four goals overall for the first time in the competition.

Having led 2-0 after just 10 minutes, it is the quickest two-goal lead Feyenoord have held in a major European game since September 1972.

Meanwhile, Sparta have failed to win any of their last 15 away games in the Champions League (drawn three, lost 12), the joint-longest ongoing such winless streak in the competition (level with AEK Athens, whose last game was in 2018).