(Football news) West Ham suffered a hammering blow to their Europa league credentials as they suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to high flying Eintracht Frankfurt. The last time the two teams met was in the semi-finals of a European competition, in that instance West Ham won the two-legged tie to reach the 1976 Cup Winners' Cup final. However, the story of the match was completely different as David Moyes' men were stunned in 49 seconds into the first half when Rafael Borre set up Knauff with a cross from the corner of the penalty box and the 20-year-old cooly headed home another goal in the knockout phase, silencing the sold-out 60,000 crowd at the London Stadium. After sending home favourites Barcelona in the quarterfinals, Eintracht did not want to waste the opportunity presented to them in the last four and were determined to make the final this time around

After the goal, West Ham players settled down and had a number of chances to level the score, including in the 14th minute when Jarrod Bowen received a beautiful pass inside the box but his shot bounced off the post. The Hammers eventually equalised in the 21st minute after Kurt Zouma nodded the freekick onto Michail Antonio who made it 1-1 from close range. Knauff was having a terrific game as he could have given Eintracht the lead again before halftime but his attempt was well wide of the target but Eintracht eventually regained the lead in the 54th, as West Ham keeper Alphonse Areola brilliantly stopped a shot by Swiss midfielder Djibril Sow but he could not manage to save the follow-up strike by Daichi Kamada. The Japan international, netted his fifth Europa League goal this season, had a chance to score his sixth goal in the 79th minute but his powerful shot from close range again hit the post. With this result the Hammers go to Frankfurt with a monumental task at hand to overcome the deficit. 

"The early goal gave us a boost of course. But their goal did not put us down, we recovered well from that," Knauff said.

Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp added: "I am not surprised by our performance. We can do this if we are fully focused, we have proven this often.

"Tonight it was another highlight for us. We wanted to make the first step towards the final

"Today wasn't one of our best performances," Antonio said.

RB Leipzig took a slender advantage over the reigning Scottish Champions Rangers as a late goal from Angelino secured a 1-0 win in the first leg.In the first half, Leipzig had missed a string of several good chances, with Rangers keeper Allan McGregor coming to the rescue on several occasions. The keeper was finally beaten, in the 85th when the Spanish left back Angelino thundered in a beautiful volley from 18 metres after Rangers had failed to clear a corner. Despite Leipzig missing several defenders through suspension, Rangers struggled to get a foothold in the match and had to wait until three minutes after the second half  for their first actual chance through Ryan Kent's low shot that flew just wide.

Leipzig upped the tempo late in the second half and they responded with Christopher Nkunku's thundering shot that was blocked by the brilliant McGregor. The Frenchman then missed a golden chance in the 70th when he did the difficult bit by rounding the keeper but lost his balance to send his shot way above the bar. The visitors' grit and determination ultimately came to nothing when Angelino connected perfectly with the ball from just outside to fire in the winner and give his team a slender advantage in the second leg in Glasgow..

"It's always disappointing when you lose a goal so late in the game, but it's a 1-0 defeat," said Rangers coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

"The players did well and we know what we have to do next week. We play at home and the crowd at Ibrox will give us the energy we need."

"It was one of those games where we had to dig deep, they had a clear game plan and made life hard but we got the result we wanted," said Leipzig midfielder Tyler Adams.

"We know it's only half-time in tie and we need to maintain our focus and performance for the return leg. We've been to a few cup finals before, but getting to a European cup final would be something special."

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