A young Tottenham Hotspur side held PAOK Salonika to a scoreless draw on Thursday as fellow British sides struggled to make a significant impact on the first night of Europa League group action.
While Fulham drew 1-1 with Dutch side Twente and Stoke City came seconds away from pulling off the shock of the night in a 1-1 draw away to Dynamo Kiev, Scottish side Celtic fell to a 2-0 defeat at Atletico Madrid.
Spurs, who play Liverpool on Sunday in the English Premier League, made 10 changes to their side and that decision looked questionable as the Greeks piled on the pressure in a lively second half in Group A.
Photo: EPA
PAOK could have gone 1-0 up just after the half-hour mark after Carlo Cudicini tripped Stefanos Athanasiadis inside the Spurs box, but after Lino converted the spot-kick, the Brazilian defender was forced to retake it. Luckily for Spurs, Lino dragged his second attempt wide.
Roman Pavlyuchenko’s fierce drive, which brushed the top netting of Dario Kresic’s goal, was Spurs’ best chance of the half.
Athanasiadis then failed to convert a superb chance after slipping past Sebastien Bassong and Vedran Corluka on 67 minutes.
Spurs escaped 10 minutes later when Cudicini had to scramble across goal to tip Pablo Garcia’s low drive wide. In a tense finish, Athanasiadis saw his shot parried by Cudicini and the Italian did brilliantly to block down low to deny the forward a winner thanks to an acrobatic volley.
Fulham have been unbeaten in 20 European home games, stretching back to their European debut — a 0-0 UEFA Intertoto Cup draw against Finland’s Haka in 2002.
They took a 19th-minute lead at Craven Cottage in Group K thanks to Andrew Johnson, but in a lively encounter the Premier League side were pegged back by a 41st-minute equalizer courtesy of striker Luuk de Jong.
“In the first half we should have been two or three up. Of course, they’re a good team, but when you put them under that sort of pressure you should be winning,” Fulham manager Martin Jol said. “We still wanted to play with four forward players, but if you don’t put the goals away, you get frustrated and put pressure on yourself. The only thing now is that we have to put the chances away.”
Celtic’s entry to this year’s competition, only confirmed on Wednesday when Swiss club Sion’s UEFA ban for using ineligible players was confirmed, started disastrously in Group I.
In the second minute, Diego’s cross was met by Colombian striker Radamel Falcao and he bulleted his header past Hoops goalkeeper Fraser Forster.
After spending much of the first period in their own half, Celtic made attempts to take the game to the Spaniards after the interval. Charlie Mulgrew’s free-kick from 20m out on 66 minutes was the closest they got to a goal.
Two minutes later, Celtic were punished for slack marking in the area when Diego coolly first-timed a cut-back to beat Forster with ease.
Stoke manager Tony Pulis sent out a defense-minded 5-3-2 formation in a bid to catch Dynamo on the counterattack in Group E and those tactics paid off when Cameron Jerome, on his debut, scored against the run of play in the 55th minute.
Stoke defended well throughout the second half and looked to be heading for a shock win, but their hearts were broken when Ognjen Vukojevic tapped home in stoppage-time.
Birmingham City went down 3-1 at home to last season’s runners-up Braga in Group H, while Irish minnows Shamrock Rovers slumped 3-0 at the hands of Russia’s Rubin Kazan in Group A.
Thursday’s other results:
Group B
‧ Copenhagen 1, Vorskla 0
‧ Hannover 96 0,
Standard Liege 0
Group C
‧ Hapoel Tel-Aviv 0,
Rapid Bucharest 1
‧ PSV Eindhoven 1,
Legia Warsaw 0
Group D
‧ Zurich 0, Sporting (Portugal) 2
‧ SS Lazio 2, Vaslui 2
Group E
‧ Besiktas 5, Maccabi Tel Aviv 1
Group F
‧ Paris Saint-Germain 3,
Red Bull Salzburg 1
‧ Slovan Bratislava 1,
Athletic Bilbao 2
Group G
‧ AZ (Netherlands) 4, Malmo 1
‧ Austria Vienna 1,
Metalist Kharkiv 2
Group H
‧ Club Brugge 2, Maribor 0
Group I
‧ Udinese 2, Stade Rennais 1
Group J
‧ Maccabi Haifa 1, AEK Larnaca 0
‧ Steaua Bucharest 0, Schalke 04 0
Group K
‧ Wisla Krakow 1, Odense BK 3
Group L
‧ Anderlecht 4, AEK (Greece) 1
‧ Sturm Graz 1,
Lokomotiv Moscow 2
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later