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Werder Bremen thrash 10-man Ajax Amsterdam

Werder Bremen punished 10-man Ajax 3-0 and Bayer Leverkusen edged Blackburn 3-2 as both German clubs won their first-leg UEFA Cup matches on Wednesday.

While Bremen seems certain to reach the last 16, however, Leverkusen can't afford a narrow loss in England.

Ajax lost midfielder Olaf Lindenbergh in the 23rd minute, sent off with his second yellow card. Per Mertesacker gave Bremen the lead three minutes into the second half, Ronaldo Naldo added a second in the 54th and Torsten Frings tacked on the third in the 71st to leave the four-time European champion Dutch side on the brink of elimination.

"I think we played a good match," Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf said.

"The ejection certainly helped us, but we stood up against a very rough-playing Amsterdam team," he said.

Bremen police took 50 Dutch fans into custody before the match as a precaution after bottles were thrown in the downtown area.

This season's competition has been plagued by crowd trouble with violence at games involving Paris Saint-Germain, where a fan was shot dead by police, and Feyenoord, which has been kicked out of the competition. Feyenoord's expulsion has put scheduled opponent Tottenham through to the last 16.

Bayer Leverkusen beat Blackburn although Shabani Nonda's goal with four minutes remaining for the English club gives Rovers a chance of advancing on away goals if they win next week's second leg 1-0.

In other UEFA Cup matches on Tuesday and Wednesday it was: Hapoel Tel Aviv 2, Glasgow Rangers 1; Maccabi Haifa 0, CSKA Moscow 0; Espanyol 2, Livorno 1; Paris Saint-Germain 2, AEK Athens 0; Benfica a 1, Dinamo Bucharest 0; Bordeaux 0, Osasuna 0; Shakhtar Donetsk 1, Nancy 1; Fenerbahce 3, AZ Alkmaar 3.
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