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In the UEFA Cup, the main tournament has started - on Thursday the first round featured 40 matches, in which quite a few unexpected results were recorded. Some favorites of the ties had to recover from a missed goal to secure a victory, others played frustrating draws, while some experienced sensational losses to lesser-known clubs.
Liverpool's "Everton" suffered a crushing defeat. Poorly starting this season, D.Moyes' team played in Bucharest against the local "Dinamo" and although J.Yobo initially responded to C.Niculescu's goal, in the second half the English club's defense collapsed, conceding four goals - "Dinamo" caused a sensation and after such an impressive victory came one step closer to the group stage.
"Lithuanian" teams had mixed fortunes. Without injured N.Barasos, "Krylja Sovetov" played at home in Samara and in a very productive match beat last season's semi-finalist "AZ" Alkmaar 5-3, the title defenders of Moscow "CSKA", in which D.Semberas did not play, broke the resistance of "Midtjylland" towards the end of the match and won 3-1, while R.Poškus playing from the 54th minute together with St. Petersburg's "Zenit" played to a goalless draw against Athens' "AEK". A.Skarbaliaus' "Brondby" confidently overcame the "Zurich" club with a two-goal advantage, while "Halmstad" played the entire match against Lisbon's "Sporting" at home and lost to last season's tournament finalist.
Overall, it was a successful day for many Eastern European teams, which either won games or managed to give a good fight against more famous teams from the West: Bukareste's "Rapid" managed to hold off Rotterdam's "Feyenoord" in the Netherlands, Donetsk's "Metallurg" did not concede on the road to Thessaloniki's "PAOK", "Groclin" did the same in the match against "Lens", "Dnipro" played goalless in Scotland against Edinburgh's "Hibernian", "Teplice" held out against "Espanyol" at home.
The Bulgarians can be proud of their teams - Sofia's "CSKA" caused a small sensation, Leverkusen narrowly defeated the local "Bayer", another Sofia club "Levski" also led on the road against "Auxerre", but was forced to concede in the second half, Plovdiv's "Lokomotiv" had to admit defeat to "Bolton" in England in the last minute, although they were also in the lead, while Lovech's "Litex" played to a draw at home against "Genk".
The first matches did not go very well for both Istanbul clubs, unexpectedly losing to opponents from Scandinavia. "Besiktas" lost at home to "Malmo", while "Galatasaray" also suffered a minimal defeat away to "Tromso". Favorites like "Marseille" failed to score against "Germinal Beerschot" in Antwerp, "Hamburger" played a draw with "Kobenhavn", and Berlin's "Hertha" narrowly won against Nicosia's "APOEL" with a penalty goal in the last minute.
"Rennes", "Monaco", "Stuttgart, "Middlesbrough", "Strasbourg" achieved convincing victories with a two-goal difference, Bosnia scored five goals unanswered against "Basel", "Roma" crushed Thessaloniki's "Aris", Donetsk's "Shakhtar" won 4-1 against "Debrecen". Debuting in European tournaments, the Italian "Palermo" narrowly won against Famagusta's "Anorthosis", another Italian club "Sampdoria" played a draw against Setubal's "Vitoria" on the road, while the tournament favorite "Sevilla" ended the match goalless against "Mainz" at home.
All the results of the first round of the UEFA Cup
