Apr 11, 2013 01:52 PM EDT
Europa League Results: Chelsea Lose to Rubin Kazan in Second Leg, But Go Through to Semifinals on Aggregate

An understrength Chelsea side made hard work of it, but did just about enough to make their way through to the Europa League semifinals with a 5-4 aggregate victory over Rubin Kazan.

Chelsea headed into the quarterfinal second leg with a 3-1 lead, with the second 90 minutes of the tie producing five goals in all, as Rubin won 3-2 on the night, but lost out narrowly on aggregate.

Ivan Marcano, Gokdeniz Karadeniz and Bebras Natcho scored for the home side in Moscow, while Fernando Torres and Victor Moses, the same two players who scored in the first leg, found the back of the net for Chelsea.

Rafa Benitez expectedly made a lot of changes to his side - some of them enforced of course - as Nathan Ake was given a start, not at left-back, but in his preferred center midfield.

Paulo Ferreira came in at left-back with injured duo Ryan Bertrand and Ashley Cole ruled out, while Lampard was pushed forward as part of an attacking trio with Victor Moses and Yossi Benayoun.

The first attack of the game, on a dodgy pitch, came from Rubin with Ferreira skinned facing his first challenge, before Roman Eremenko's shot was blocked inside the penalty area.

Chelsea pretty much put the game to bed in the fifth minute off their first attack. Lampard played Torres in behind the Kazan defence with a nice pass, with the Spaniard looping the ball over the onrushing goalkeeper Sergei Ryzhikov for his 20th goal of the season.

Rubin now needed at least three goals to just take the tie to extra time, but it was Lampard and Chelsea who were controlling things without really kicking into top gear.

Moses tested Ryzhikov with a strike from 22 yards, as the Blues slowly looked to kill the game by staying as compact as possible.

Jose Rondon shot wide while under pressure to give Rubin a sniff of a possible goal in the first half, before Eremenko managed to only fire a weak shot straight at Petr Cech after some good work from Alan Kasaev, who easily ran past Ake and John Terry.

Gokdenis Karadeniz nearly made it 1-1 on the stroke of halftime, courtesy a pass from Natcho, but Cech was up to the challenge making a nice one-handed save as the teams went into halftime.

The second half sprung into life with Rubin making it 1-1 on the night and 2-4 on aggregate. Marcano rose highest inside the box to head into the bottom corner on 51 minutes.

Moses, though, made it comfortable for Chelsea again four minutes later with a well-take goal. Lampard found the Chelsea winger, who then played a nice one-two with Ramires before coolly slotting the ball past the Rubin keeper.

However, Rubin refused to lie down as they made it 2-2 via Karadeniz, with some poor Chelsea defending again allowing the Rubin man to head home in the 62nd minute.

Marcano nearly gave Rubin the lead soon after, but his header just skimmed the outside of the post, with Cech well beaten.

Rubin did get their third goal though, albeit under controversial circumstances. Aleksandr Ryazantsev went down quite easily under the challenge of Cesar Azpilicueta, with the referee pointing to the spot.

Natcho, who scored from the spot in the first leg, stepped up and calmly tucked it in past Cech to make it 3-2 and 4-5 on aggregate.

However, with Chelsea having scored two away goals, Rubin still needed a couple of goals to go through, and one of them nearly came a few minutes later. Rondon was left all alone inside the box, but the former Malaga striker could only plant his header from seven yards straight at Cech as the Blues held on to advance.

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