Former European champions Juventus and Liverpool won their first games in this season’s Europa League on Thursday.
While Liverpool labored on their return to the second tier of European club soccer to beat Unirea Urziceni with a late goal, Brazilian striker Amauri scored a header in each half as Juventus recovered from a goal down to beat Ajax 2-1.
Ajax started aggressively in Amsterdam and Siem de Jong headed wide before Miralem Sulejmani put the home side in the lead in the 17th.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Alessandro Del Piero started the move that led to Juventus’ 32nd-minute equalizer, passing two defenders before picking out Paolo De Ceglie, who crossed to Amauri.
Del Piero then set up Amauri again in the 58th.
“Perhaps I am exaggerating but I believe they had two crosses the whole game and they scored from those two,” Ajax coach Martin Jol said. “We deserved more than a loss.”
Juventus will be without Hasan Salihamidzic in next week’s second-leg match. The substitute was sent off in the last minute for fouling Christian Eriksen, but Ajax have a more disruptive suspension, with leading scorer Luis Suarez unavailable after a booking.
Liverpool, another of the former European champions now fighting it out in the less prestigious Europa League, were unimpressive in their 1-0 win against Unirea Urziceni — who, like Liverpool and Juventus, dropped into the tournament following elimination from the Champions League.
The English side needed an 81st-minute header by David Ngog to beat the Romanians.
Ryan Babel crossed right-footed from the left to Daniel Pacheco, and the Spanish youngster headed back across goal for Ngog to knock into the net from close range.
“They were very stubborn but we expected that,” Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard said. “Maybe we need to be a bit more clinical. Maybe we lacked 5 or 10 percent on the speed of the ball but I think we’ll get more joy against these away from home.”
Spain’s four teams failed to earn a single win between them, even with three of them playing at home.
Atletico Madrid drew 1-1 with Galatasaray, who have the edge after Abdul Keita grabbed a valuable away goal in the second half following Jose Antonio Reyes’ 23rd-minute free kick for the hosts.
Athletic Bilbao drew 1-1 with Anderlecht, a 58th-minute equalizer from Mikel San Jose coming after Lucas Biglia had opened the scoring at San Mames Stadium
Villarreal drew 2-2 with Wolfsburg, and Valencia lost 1-0 at FC Brugge.
Villarreal equalized with five minutes left against Wolfsburg through striker Marco Ruben while Valencia lost to a 56th-minute goal by striker Dorge Kouemaha, .
Fulham beat Shakhtar Donetsk, the last club to win the UEFA Cup before it was revamped as the Europa League this season, 2-1 in west London. Zoltan Gera and Bobby Zamora scored for Fulham.
Djibril Cisse scored with a minute left to give Panathinaikos a surprise 3-2 win over visiting AS Roma.
The Italian club had led twice, through Mirko Vucinic and a penalty by David Pizarro, but Dimitris Salpingidis and then Lazaros Hristodoulopoulos equalized.
Russia’s Rubin Kazan racked up the biggest win of the day’s 15 matches, beating Hapoel Tel Aviv 3-0, while Standard Liege handed Red Bull Salzburg a 3-2 loss.
FC Twente beat Werder Bremen 1-0 and Hamburg beat PSV Eindhoven 1-0 while Hertha Berlin, the bottom-place team in the Bundesliga, drew 1-1 with Benfica.
Marseille and Copenhagen were 0-0 in Denmark until the 71st, when Mamadou Niang scored from a pass by Bakari Kone.
Jesper Groenkjaer equalized from the spot seven minutes later but Hatem Ben Arfa and Charles Kabore struck in the last six minutes to give the French side a 3-1 win.
Lille beat Fenerbahce 2-1 in the other match.
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