Torino thrashed Copenhagen 5-1 at the Telia Parken on Thursday evening in the last round of matches in the Europa League group stage.
Daniel Amartey originally gave the Danes hope, but two red cards for Copenhagen’s Mikael Antonsson and Mathias Jorgensen gave Torino the advantage.
A Josef Martinez brace and goals for Amauri, Matteo Darmian and Gaston Silva made sure that Torino walked away with all three points and qualification to the knockout stages.
Copenhagen were already eliminated from the competition so they were just playing for pride, and luck was on their side when a Kamil Glik clearance hit the boot of Amartey and the Ghanian’s deflection gave him a goal to put the Danish side in front.
However, Torino were back in the game 10 minutes later when an excellent through ball was well controlled by Martinez who, thanks to the questionable absence of the offside flag, slotted the ball past Copenhagen keeper Stephan Andersen.
Torino were once again on the front foot four minutes later, when Martinez was through on goal but the Danes were saved by the assistant referee’s offside flag.
Stale Solbakken’s nightmare then began as Copenhagen were reduced to 10 men after half an hour thanks to Antonsson pulling down Martinez on the edge of the penalty area.
The Lions survived this first threat after the resulting free kick was deflected over the bar, but it only got worse for them when a penalty was awarded to Torino, and Copenghagen had another player sent off.
Jorgensen received a red card for pulling down Amauri inside the penalty area, who scored from the resulting kick to put the Italians ahead for the first time in the match.
Giampiero Ventura’s side led going into half time, and the match didn’t improve for Copenhagen in the last 45 minutes who had to play the second half with just nine men.
Torino doubled their lead in the 46th minute when an Omar El Kaddouri through ball placed Martinez in the perfect position to score, and the Venezuelan got his second goal of the game.
The Italians then got their fourth when a Martinez shot was deflected, which resulted in a cross that lead to Darmian smashing the ball into the back of the net.
Torino then started to score for fun as Silva got on the score sheet when his volley from a cross flew into the bottom right corner of the net.
They were then dominating the game again in the 65th minute, after a corner put El Kaddouri through on goal but the offside flag once again stopped Torino from scoring and adding further humiliation on their opponents.
Torino’s domination then died down while the Copenhagen counter attack was non-existent, securing a precious victory that sees the Granata through to the Round of 32.
