Lazio midfielder Ederson has insisted that his side's 2-0 win in Stuttgart in the Europa League last 16 was a "huge step" towards reaching the quarter-finals.

Ederson, who thanked the coach Vladimir Petkovic for playing him, was also keen to urge his teammates to keep up their level of performance in the next leg in order to make sure that they do get through.

"The coach put his faith in me and my teammates helped me too," UEFA.com quotes Ederson as saying. "We played really well and we're delighted to come here and get such a result. We've taken a huge step towards qualifying and we now need to carry on like this in the second leg.

"We're in this competition, which is a beautiful competition, and then we have the league and we don't want to give up on that either; then there's the cup too.

"We want to fight on all fronts and we hope that our injured players return soon so that we can maintain this challenge."

Ederson joined Lazio from Lyon last summer.