PARIS: Gareth Bale had a quiet first start for Tottenham Hotspur since returning to the London club, while Carlos Vinicius made a more impressive debut by setting up two goals in a 3-0 win over LASK in the Europa League on Thursday.

North London rivals Arsenal opened their fourth straight Europa League campaign with a 2-1 come-from-behind win at Rapid Vienna in an opening round of games affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

On a good night for Premier League clubs, Leicester City earned a comfortable 3-0 home win over Zorya Luhansk.

AC Milan withstood a late onslaught to beat Celtic 3-1, while AS Roma came from a goal down to win 2-1 at Young Boys and AZ Alkmaar overcame the loss of 13 players with positive Covid-19 tests to secure a shock 1-0 win at Napoli.

Bayer Leverkusen ran riot 6-2 against French side Nice and Spanish side Granada, in their first ever European campaign, beat PSV Eindhoven 2-1.

Rangers’ Kemar Roofe scored the goal of the night in a 2-0 victory at Standard Liege, dribbling his way through three opponents inside his own half and then launching a shot from the halfway line that caught the goalkeeper off guard and looped into the net.

“The goal was a moment of genius -- a world-class moment. I have been playing football professionally since 1998 and it is the best goal I have ever seen live with my own eyes,” Rangers manager Steven Gerrard told Rangers TV.

After coming on as a substitute against West Ham United for his first appearance since returning to Tottenham, Bale played more than an hour against in the Group ‘J’ match against LASK of Austria, and had a hand in Spurs’ second goal.

The forward, who is on loan from Real Madrid, collected a pass from Erik Lamela in the 27th and sent a low cross into the area from the right that defender Andres Andrade deflected into his own net.

Earlier, Lucas Moura finished off another free-flowing move to open the scoring after being set up by Vinicius. The Brazilian, who is on loan from Benfica, created several other chances before teeing up substitute Son Heung-min to wrap up the win six minutes from time.

“We went out there today and did a great job. We were solid and threatening and the most important thing in these games at the start is to get the three points,” Bale told BT Sport.

In the other group game, Ludogorets lost 2-1 at home to Royal Antwerp.

Arsenal, who have not claimed a European trophy since lifting the old Cup Winners’ Cup in 1994, went behind when goalkeeper Bernd Leno played a poor pass that fell to Rapid forward Taxiarchis Fountas, who slotted in a low shot from a tough angle in the 51st minute.

Manager Mikel Arteta sent on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Hector Bellerin in the 61st, and the substitutes helped spark the comeback.

After David Luiz headed in a free kick from Nicolas Pepe to level the score, Mohamed Elneny freed Bellerin down the right to cross for Aubameyang to complete the comeback from close range.

The other Group ‘B’ game was being played out in Dublin where Dundalk, only Ireland’s third ever representative in the group stage, were beaten 2-1 by Norwegians Molde.

James Maddison and Harvey Barnes scored first half-goals for Leicester and Kelechi Iheanacho added one more in the second in Group ‘G’ as Brendan Rodgers’ team bounced back from two straight losses in the Premier League.

Braga also earned a 3-0 win over AEK Athens.

With Milan’s defence well marshalled by Danish centre-back Simon Kjaer, they looked to be cruising to an easy win at Celtic after first-half goals from Rade Krunic and Brahim Diaz.

However, the Scottish champions came roaring back in the second half and reduced the deficit through Mohamed Elyounoussi. Milan needed a late goal from Jens Petter Hauge, his first for the club, to put the Group ‘H’ game out of reach.

Lille won 4-1 at Sparta Prague in the other group game.

ALKMAAR STUN NAPOLI

Dutch team Alkmaar were under pressure for the whole game as Napoli dominated possession and peppered their goal but Dani de Wit scored in the 57th minute for a stunning victory in Group ‘F’.

Real Sociedad won 1-0 at Rijeka the other group game.

With Roma resting striker Edin Deko, Bruno Peres and Marash Kumbulla led the rally with the second-half goals for the Italian side. Jean Pierre Nsame had given Young Boys the lead by converting a penalty kick in the 14th.

Also in Group ‘A’, Romania’s Cluj won 2-0 at Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia.

Leverkusen went on the rampage against French side Nice in a victory that saw winger Karim Bellarabi score twice late on for the home side in Group ‘C’. Nadiem Amiri and Lucas Alario scored early first-half goals five minutes apart for Leverkusen, while 17-year-old forward Florian Wirtz came off the bench to complete the rout.

In a game between teams from two countries whose domestic leagues have been interrupted due to high levels of coronavirus infections, Israel’s Hapoel Beer-Sheva beat Czech Republic’s Slavia Prague 3-1.

Villarreal and Turkey’s Sivasspor played out an eight-goal thriller in Group ‘I’, with the Spanish side grabbing a 5-3 win thanks to a late double from striker Paco Alcacer, while Maccabi Tel-Aviv beat Qarabag 1-0.

James Tavernier gave Rangers the lead from the penalty spot in the 19th before Roofe added his spectacular second goal in injury time.

Benfica had claimed the first goal of the night and they went on to beat Lech Poznan in Poland 4-2 in the other Group ‘D’ game.

In Group ‘E’, German forward Mario Goetze put PSV ahead in first-half injury time before Jorge Molina and Darwin Machis scored for Granada in the second half. Omonoia drew with PAOK 1-1.

In Group ‘K’, Dinamo Zagreb drew 0-0 with Feyenoord and VfL Wolfsberg drew 1-1 against CSKA Moscow.

Hoffenheim overcame the absence of forward Andrej Kramaric, who tested positive for the coronavirus, to beat Red Star Belgrade 2-0 in Group ‘L’. Czech club Liberec started with a 1-0 home win over Gent.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2020