NEWS 4:

(CNN) -- Villarreal planted one foot in the Europa League semifinals after thrashing Dutch champions FC Twente 5-1 in Spain.

The club, nicknamed The Yellow Submarine, mirrored the feats of fellow Spanish sides Barcelona and Real Madrid in the Champions League, securing a four-goal winning margin.

Brazilian striker Nilmar scored twice while Carlos Marchena, Borja Valero and Giuseppe Rossi all were on target at El Madrigal.

The only slight disappointment for Juan Carlos Garrido's side was an injury time goal for Marc Janko, but Twente still need to score four unanswered goals in next week's second leg to progress.

Portuguese side Porto matched Villarreal's feat by putting five goals past Russian outfit Spartak Moscow.

Colombian striker Falcao grabbed a hat-trick with Silvestre Varela and an Dmitri Kombarov own goal completing an emphatic victory.

Kombarov did score at the right end to give Spartak an away goal but they face an uphill task to make the final four.

Benfica followed Porto's lead by thrashing Dutch side PSV Eindhoven 4-1 in Lisbon.

A goal from Argentinean Pablo Aimar and two from his compatriot Eduardo Salvio raced Benfica into a 3-0 lead before Zakaria Labyad gave PSV hope with an away goal ten minutes from time.

But another Argentinean, Javier Saviola, restored the home side's three-goal advantage late on to put Benfica in prime position to make the semifinals.

The other Portuguese side left in the competition, Braga, earned a 1-1 draw against Dynamo Kiev in Ukraine.

Both goals came inside the opening 14 minutes as Kiev took the lead through Andriy Yarmolenko before a Ognjen Vukojevic own goal leveled the score.

COMMENT:

the spanish team wons to hte twente 5 goals over 1.