LONDON: Sevilla’s love affair with the Europa League was immediately rekindled as last season’s champions and three-times winners began this year’s group stage with a 2-0 home victory over Feyenoord on Thursday.
On-loan midfielder Gerard Deulofeu’s set-pieces proved too hot to handle for Feyenoord as two of his first-half free kicks were turned home by Grzegorz Krychowiak and Stephane Mbia as a new-look Sevilla side comfortably cruised home.
Europe’s second-tier competition, so often derided for lacking the sparkle of its Champions League cousin, was ushered back into action with some stand-out individual displays and a glut of goals across its opening 24 group games.
There were hat-tricks from Dinamo Zagreb’s El Arbi Hilal Soudani, PAOK Salonika captain Stefanos Athanasiadis and Steaua Bucharest’s Claudiu Keseru, whose teams all enjoyed emphatic home wins.
Ex-European champions Inter Milan and PSV Eindhoven also got off to winning starts, while Napoli, whose manager Rafa Benitez was heavily criticised after his side failed to make it through a Champions League playoff, came back from a goal down to beat Sparta Prague 3-1 at the San Paolo.
Premier League Everton enjoyed a victorious return to the European stage after a five-year absence with a 4-1 home victory over VfL Wolfsburg, but Tottenham Hotspur were held to a drab 0-0 stalemate at Partizan Belgrade.
Among the five former European champions in this season’s Europa League group stage, Steaua Bucharest made the most eye-catching start, thrashing AaB Aalborg 6-0 in Group J with Keseru scoring three goals in 12 second-half minutes.
The two other three-goal hauls both arrived in the first half.
Dinamo Zagreb’s Soudani scored with two headers and a calmly-taken effort from close range in a 5-1 win over Romanians Astra to cap a superb week for Algeria forwards following Yacine Brahimi’s hat-trick for Porto in the Champions League.
PAOK’s Athanasiadis had wrapped up his hat-trick in 28 minutes as the Greek side beat Dinamo Minsk 6-1 in Group K. Serie A’s Inter had to be patient in Ukraine against Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in Group F before Danilo D’Ambrosio grabbed the only goal after 71 minutes, while PSV’s Luuk de Jong scored a first-half penalty in a 1-0 home win over Estoril in Group E.
Napoli beat Sparta Prague in Group I thanks to a penalty from Gonzalo Higuain and two second-half goals from Belgium’s Dries Mertens after Josef Husbauer had given the visitors an early lead.
Tottenham drew a blank at Partizan Belgrade with striker Harry Kane missing their best chance in the first minute, hitting the woodwork from eight metres after the hosts failed to clear a corner.
Everton manager Roberto Martinez is perhaps a rarity among Premier League managers in welcoming the mountain of extra fixtures that a successful run in the Europa League can bring about and he received an early reward with a comfortable 4-1 win.
LIVERPOOL: Everton’s Leighton Baines (second L) scores the goal from the penalty spot during their match against Wolfsburg.—AFP |
Results: Group ‘A’
At Moenchengladbach, Germany Borussia Moenchengladbach 1Villarreal 1 At Nicosia Apollon Limassol 3FC Zrich 2
Group ‘B’
At Bruges, Belgium Club Brugge 0Torino 0 At Copenhagen FC Copenhagen 2 HJK Helsinki 0
Group ‘C’
At Belgrade Partizan Belgrade 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 At Istanbul Besiktas 1 Asteras Tripolis 1
Group ‘D’
At Salzburg, Austria Salzburg 2 Celtic 2 At Zagreb Dinamo Zagreb 5 FC Astra 1
Group ‘E’
At Eindhoven, Netherlands PSV Eindhoven 1 Estoril 0 At Athens Panathinaikos 1 Dinamo Moscow 2
Group ‘F’
At Baku Qarabag 0 Saint-Etienne 0 At Kiev Dnipropetrovsk 0 Inter Milan 1
Group ‘G’
At Liege Belgium Standard Liege 2 Rijeka 0 At Seville Spain Sevilla 2Feyenoord 0
Group ‘H’
At Lille France Lille 1FC Krasnodar 1 At Liverpool United Kingdom Everton 4VfL Wolfsburg 1
Group ‘I’
At Bern Young Boys 5Slovan Bratislava 0 At Naples Italy Napoli 3Sparta Prague 1
Group ‘J’
At Bucharest Steaua Bucharest 6Aalborg 0 At Vila do Conde Portugal Rio Ave 0Dynamo Kiev 3
Group ‘K’
At Thessaloniki Greece PAOK 6Dinamo Minsk 1 At Florence Italy Fiorentina 3Guingamp 0
Group ‘L’
At Lviv Ukraine Metalist Kharkiv 1Trabzonspor 2 At Warsaw Legia Warsaw 1Lokeren 0.
Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2014
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