Martinez saves penalties to send Villa into semis

Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez saved two spot kicks and survived a bizarre red card incident as his side beat French club Lille on penalties to reach the Europa Conference League semifinals on Thursday.

A chaotic match ended 3-3 on aggregate after Lille’s 2-1 victory on the night but the real drama was to come in the shoot-out with World Cup winner Martinez in the thick of it.

Martinez first saved brilliantly to keep out Nabil Bentaleb’s effort to give Villa the advantage in the shoot-out and kept out Benjamin Andre’s effort to seal a 4-3 shoot-out win for Unai Emery’s side.