Champions League round-up: Napoli and Sevilla win first legs
Wednesday 16 August 2017 22:50, UK
Napoli and Sevilla both secured leads in the first legs of their Champions League play-off round ties on Wednesday.
Napoli took a big step towards the group stages with a 2-0 home win over nine-man Nice.
Dries Mertens slotted in the opener after 13 minutes before Jorginho doubled the lead with a penalty in the second half.
Lorenzo Insigne hit the woodwork for Napoli and the visitors finished with nine men as Alassane Plea was sent off for a second yellow card just after Vincent Koziello's straight red for a dangerous tackle on Piotr Zielinski.
Maurizio Sarri's side are now ideally placed to join Juventus and AS Roma in the group stage while Nice have it all to do in the return leg at the Allianz Riviera stadium on August 22.
Sevilla also set themselves up for a place in the group stage alongside La Liga rivals Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid by beating Istanbul Basaksehir 2-1 in Turkey.
Wisam Ben Yedder picked up a back-heeled pass from Jesus Navas to net the winner six minutes from time.
Sergio Escudero opened the scoring for Sevilla after 16 minutes with Eljero Elia getting the equaliser after 64 minutes.
A Scott Sinclair double helped Celtic to a 5-0 thrashing of Astana in their play-off round first leg in Glasgow.
Elsewhere, Hapoel Beer-Sheva beat Maribor of Slovenia 2-1 at home in Israel while Olympiakos beat Croatian side Rijeka by the same scoreline in Greece.
