TAKE ZLAT! ZAHOVIC THE HERO FOR VALENCIA

VALENCIA were made to fight for their third straight Champions League win and were indebted to Zlatko Zahovic who scored the only goal of the game to give the Spanish side three vital points against a spirited Lyon side.

After a scrappy opening, last year's Champion's League finalists began to settle and it was their little Argentinian, Kily Gonzalez, who began to cause the French side problems.

The tricky skills of Gonzalez were too much for the French outfit and on 35 minutes, he was up-ended inside the Lyon penalty box by Jean-Marc Chanelet. The referee had no hesitation in awarding Valencia a penalty, but Gaizka Mendieta's effort was well saved by Gregory Coupet and he then reacted quickly to block Juan Sanchez's follow-up.

On 69 minutes, Zahovic, one of the stars of Euro 2000, was brought on in place of Luis Milla and it was the Slovenian superstar who broke the deadlock.

Kily Gonzalez and Sanchez combined to set up Zahovic and he made no mistake steering the ball beyond the Lyon goalkeeper and give the Spanish side a deserved lead with only 13 minutes remaining.

Meanwhile, Olympiakos cemented second place in Group C with a good 2-0 win over SC Heerenveen with Brazilian ace Giovanni scoring twice for the Athens side.

The Greek side were slow out of the blocks and were indebted to keeper Dimitrios Eleftherpoulos who made a superb save to deny Anthony Lurling within the first five minutes. But chances were few and far between in an evenly contested first half despite the constant probing of Swedish international Par Johan Zetterberg for the Dutch club.

Seven minutes into the second half, the Greek side took the lead and it came courtesy of Giovanni. Luciano De Silva delivered an inch perfect cross from the right, and the former Barcelona striker headed his side into the lead to claim his second European goal this season.

Soon after, Giovanni had his third of the campaign. The impressive Zetterberg found the Brazilian with his corner and Giovanni rounded off a great night for Olympiakos with another header.

The final 20 minutes was all Heerenveen but the Dutch side were unable to take any of their chances leaving the majority inside the Spiros Louis Stadium celebrating a fantastic win.