Juve see off Lyon

Juventus playmaker Andrea Pirlo jumps for joy after scoring the opening goal against Olympique Lyon during their Europa League quarterfinal in Turin on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Italian champions Juventus proved too strong for a spirited Lyon in the Europa League quarterfinals on Thursday, while Sevilla, Valencia and last season's runners-up Benfica also clinched their places in the last four.
Juve's main focus is on retaining the Serie A title, but Antonio Conte's side are also desperate to reach a Europa League final that will be played in their own stadium in Turin on May 14, and a 2-1 win against Lyon on Thursday took them into the semifinals 3-1 on aggregate.
Benfica, who suffered an agonising 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in last season's final in Amsterdam, beat Dutch side AZ Alkmaar 2-0 to go through 3-0 on aggregate, while Sevilla recovered from a 1-0 first-leg defeat away to Porto, beating the Portuguese side 4-1 in the return at the Sanchez Pizjuan.
And Valencia recovered from a 3-0 first-leg loss to Basel, winning 5-0 after extra time at the Mestalla to progress.
Unbeaten at home this season and leading 1-0 from last week's first leg in France, Juve got off to a superb start at a packed Juventus Stadium as veteran Andrea Pirlo curled home a typically brilliant free-kick inside four minutes.
Lyon, who were missing a host of key players due to injury, showed great spirit to level the scores on the night when Jimmy Briand headed in off a post in the 18th minute, and suddenly OL knew that one goal would be enough to take them through.
However, with former Juve player and coach, and current France boss, Didier Deschamps, watching on from the stands, Carlos Tevez had a headed effort disallowed for offside just after the hour mark before a Claudio Marchisio strike that took a huge deflection off Samuel Umtiti wrong-footed Anthony Lopes in goal and effectively ended Lyon's dreams.
Having fallen just short in the Portuguese league and Cup as well as the Europa League 12 months ago, Benfica are still on course to win all three competitions this time around.
Seven points clear in their domestic league with four games to go and through to the last four of the Portuguese Cup, Benfica are also into the last four in the Europa League after Spanish striker Rodrigo bagged a brace at the Estadio da Luz to clinch a comfortable aggregate win against AZ.

RESULTS
Benfica (POR) 2 (Rodrigo 39, 71) AZ Alkmaar (NED) 0
Benfica win 3-0 on aggregate
Juventus (ITA) 2 (Pirlo 4, Umtiti 68-og) Lyon (FRA) 1 (Briand 18)
Juventus win 3-1 on aggregate
Sevilla (ESP) 4 (Rakitic 5-pen, Vitolo 26, Bacca 29, Gameiro 79) FC Porto (POR) 1 (Quaresma 90+2)
Sevilla win 4-2 on aggregate
Valencia (ESP) 5 (Paco Alcacer 38, 70, 114 Vargas 42, Bernat 118) Basel (SUI) 0 after extra time
Valencia win 5-3 on aggregate