ZURICH: Napoli went down 3-1 at home to RB Leipzig, Arsenal and AC Milan enjoyed comfortable away wins, and Borussia Dortmund’s Michy Batshuayi scored twice to secure a 3-2 victory in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 ties on Thursday.
Serie A leaders Napoli went ahead against Leipzig but slumped to a 3-1 defeat after a Timo Werner brace, Arsenal overcame Sweden’s Ostersunds 3-0 helped by an own goal and Milan won by the same score against Bulgarian champions Ludogorets Razgrad.
Batshuayi took his tally to five goals in three games since joining Dortmund on loan from Chelsea, with his double against Atalanta hauling the Germans side back from 2-1 down after Josip Ilicic scored twice in five minutes for the Italians.
Mario Balotelli scored twice, but 10-man Nice blew a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 at home to Lokomotiv Moscow as Manuel Fernandes hit a hat-trick, while Valere Germain struck two goals as Olympique de Marseille cruised past Braga 3-0.
Twice former winners Atletico Madrid recovered from an early fright to win 4-1 at FC Copenhagen as Saul Niguez, Kevin Gameiro, Antoine Griezmann and Vitolo shared the goals after Victor Fischer had put the Danish side in front.
Olympique Lyonnais, semi-finalists last season, impressively saw off Villarreal 3-1 with Nabil Fekir and Memphis Depay both finding the net.
FCSB, formerly Steaua Bucharest, beat Lazio 1-0 and a 78th-minute winner from Callum McGregor gave former European champions Celtic victory over Zenit St Petersburg by the same score at Parkhead.
Athletic Bilbao were lifted by two goals from 37-year-old striker Artiz Aduriz in a 3-1 win at Spartak Moscow, while their Basque rivals Real Socieded were held 2-2 at home by Salzburg and Viktoria Plzen drew 1-1 at Partizan Belgrade.
Greek police detained 18 people, believed to be supporters of Dynamo Kiev, for questioning after a bar in Athens was damaged ahead of the Ukrainian team’s 1-1 draw against AEK.
Sporting’s Bruno Fernandes, Gelson Martins and Seydou Doumbia scored in an eight-minute spell after halftime as they came from behind to win 3-1 on Astana’s artificial pitch in Kazakhstan where Marin Tomasov gave the hosts an early lead.
The roof was closed for the match with temperatures hovering around minus 20 Celsius outside.
Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri has made it clear that his priority lies in Serie A and a disappointingly sparse crowd turned up for the visit of Leipzig.
Adam Ounas gave Napoli the lead early in the second half, the Algerian’s first goal for the club, but Leipzig, a distant second to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, made the most of shoddy defending to turn the game around.