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.

Results:Group ‘A’

At Moenchengladbach, GermanyBorussia Moenchengladbach 1Villarreal 1At NicosiaApollon Limassol 3FC Zrich 2

Group ‘B’

At Bruges, BelgiumClub Brugge 0Torino 0At CopenhagenFC Copenhagen 2 HJK Helsinki 0

Group ‘C’

At BelgradePartizan Belgrade 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0At IstanbulBesiktas 1 Asteras Tripolis 1

Group ‘D’

At Salzburg, AustriaSalzburg 2 Celtic 2 At ZagrebDinamo Zagreb 5 FC Astra 1

Group ‘E’

At Eindhoven, NetherlandsPSV Eindhoven 1 Estoril 0At AthensPanathinaikos 1 Dinamo Moscow 2

Group ‘F’

At BakuQarabag 0 Saint-Etienne 0At KievDnipropetrovsk 0 Inter Milan 1

Group ‘G’

At Liege Belgium Standard Liege 2 Rijeka 0 At SevilleSpain Sevilla 2Feyenoord 0

Group ‘H’

At LilleFrance Lille 1FC Krasnodar 1 At LiverpoolUnited Kingdom Everton 4VfL Wolfsburg 1

Group ‘I’

At BernYoung Boys 5Slovan Bratislava 0 At NaplesItaly Napoli 3Sparta Prague 1

Group ‘J’

At BucharestSteaua Bucharest 6Aalborg 0 At Vila do CondePortugal Rio Ave 0Dynamo Kiev 3

Group ‘K’

At ThessalonikiGreece PAOK 6Dinamo Minsk 1At FlorenceItaly Fiorentina 3Guingamp 0

Group ‘L’

At LvivUkraine Metalist Kharkiv 1Trabzonspor 2 At Warsaw Legia Warsaw 1Lokeren 0.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2014