PARIS - Sevilla maintained their quest to win a third straight Europa League crown by ousting fellow Spaniards Athletic Bilbao on penalties on Thursday. Sevilla joined Liverpool, Shakhtar Donetsk and fellow La Liga outfit Villarreal in the semi-finals despite losing 2-1 at home.
That made it a 3-3 tie on aggregate and after extra-time provided no more goals, the game went to penalties. Frenchman Kevin Gameiro scored the decisive spot-kick after Benat had his kick for Athletic saved by goalkeeper David Soria.
Gameiro had also scored in normal time either side of strikes from Aritz Aduriz and Raul Garcia for Athletic. Shakhtar, the 2009 UEFA Cup champions, also powered into the last four with a 4-0 thrashing of Braga in Lviv. Darijo Srna converted a first-half penalty before Ricardo Ferreira twice put through his own net either side of a Viktor Kovalenko strike as the Ukrainians strolled through 6-1 on aggregate.
Villarreal striker Cedric Bakambu continued his sublime form with two more goals in a 4-2 win over Sparta Prague in the Czech Republic to complete a 6-3 aggregate victory.
The tie of the round came in England where Liverpool hit back from 2-0 and 3-1 down to beat Borussia Dortmund 4-3 and progress 5-4 on aggregate.
Playing against his former side, Jurgen Klopp's team trailed to goals from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Divock Origi pulled a goal back before Marco Reus restored the Germans' two-goal advantage.
Liverpool needed three goals to progress due to the away goals rule and Dejan Lovren pounced to head home the injury-time winner after Philippe Coutinho and Mamadou Sakho had drawn the hosts level on the night.
Lovren scored a heart-stopping stoppage-time header as Liverpool completed an astonishing comeback to beat Borussia Dortmund 4-3 and reach the Europa League semi-finals.
Held 1-1 in last week's first leg at the Westfalenstadion, Dortmund scored twice in nine minutes through Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to take a firm grip on the tie. After Divock Origi had given Liverpool a foothold, Marco Reus struck again for the visitors, but goals from Philippe Coutinho and Mamadou Sakho levelled the tie before Lovren headed home in the 91st minute to give former Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp the biggest win of his Anfield tenure.
"It is difficult to explain. A wonderful, wonderful night at Anfield and to be honest the game was strange," Klopp told BT Sport. "This is European football at its best. It's hard to believe. Congratulations to all of the lads. It is a game that all fans -- even not of Liverpool or Dortmund -- can say, 'OK, football is a nice game.'"
Liverpool's stirring rally, which unfurled amid an electrifying Anfield atmosphere, took them into a continental semi-final for the first time since 2010 and kept Klopp on course to end his first season at the club with a trophy.
His successor at Dortmund, Thomas Tuchel, could only look on in disbelief at the final whistle as the 5-4 aggregate scoreline condemned his side to defeat, four days on from a 2-2 draw with Schalke that left his men seven points adrift of leaders Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga.
Kick-off was preceded by a rousing communal rendition of 'You'll Never Walk Alone', the two clubs' anthem, and a solemnly observed minute's silence to mark the 27th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. But any sense of sentimentality quickly vanished as Dortmund turned the tie on its head in the early stages.
An early Aubameyang effort that curled wide gave Klopp's side a warning and when the ball next found its way into the hosts' box, after a Liverpool attack broke down high on the left flank, there was no reprieve. Gonzalo Castro's flighted cross picked out Aubameyang and although his close-range volley was alertly parried by Simon Mignolet, Mkhitaryan tucked in the rebound.