Turkey's Yazıcı becomes Europa League player of week

ISTANBUL

French football club Lille's Turkish midfielder Yusuf Yazıcı became the UEFA Europa League player of the week over his hat-trick against Sparta Prague.

Yazıcı scored three goals against Czech opponents Sparta Prague in Thursday's Europa League match as Lille won 4-1 in Prague's Stadion Letna.

This was Yazıcı's first senior hat-trick.

Yazıcı on Oct. 23 won the polls on the UEFA website, beating other nominees, including Benfica's Uruguayan forward Darwin Nunez, Leicester City's Nigerian forward Kelechi Iheanacho, and Villarreal's Japanese midfielder Takefusa Kubo.

Similar to Yazıcı, Nunez netted three goals to contribute to Benfica's 4-2 win over Lech Poznan of Poland.

Leicester's Iheanacho scored one goal against Ukraine's Zorya Luhansk as the English club won the match 3-0.

Villarreal's Kubo produced two assists and one goal for his team as the Spanish club beat Turkey's Sivasspor 5-3.