Fantastic night for Moffi, Boniface, Orban in Europe

• Thursday night football produced some exciting showings by Nigerian players involved

EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE

Exciting young forward, Gift Orban completed 70% of his passes and was successful with 75% of his dribbles as Gent forced West Ham to a 1-1 draw at the Ghelamco Arena in the first leg of the Europa Conference League quarterfinal fixture.

Orban came close to getting the winning goal for Gent, but his superb overhead kick hit the crossbar to the relief of the Premier League side.

Elsewhere, Super Eagles striker, Terem Moffi struck twice to help OGC Nice claim an impressive 2-2 draw away to Basel.

The hosts drew first blood through a Zeki Amdouni penalty, but Moffi slammed home a fantastic equalizer with a perfect overhead kick.

The former Kortrijk forward then put Nice ahead in first-half stoppage time with another fine finish.

However, Zeki Amdouni completed his brace for the home side midway through the second half, leaving next week's return leg in France on a knife edge.

EUROPA LEAGUE

At the BayArena, Victor Boniface made an excellent contribution to help unfancied Belgian side, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise claim a 1-1 draw against Bundesliga campaigners, Bayer Leverkusen.

Boniface grabbed Saint-Gilloise's only goal barely six minutes after the halftime break, his sixth goal of the competition, joint-top with Marcus Rashford of Manchester United.

However, Florian Wirtz netted an equalizer for the home side eight minutes from time, leaving it all to play for in the second leg in Belgium next Thursday.