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Rampant Napoli among winners as Europa League returns

Gonzalo Higuain celebrates with his Napoli team-mates
Image: Gonzalo Higuain celebrates with his Napoli team-mates

Napoli were among the first-leg winners as the Europa League returned with a bang.

While Liverpool earned a slender advantage over Besiktas in their last-32 tie thanks to Mario Balotelli's late penalty and Celtic snatched a dramatic 3-3 draw with Inter in injury-time, Rafael Benitez's men eased past Trabzonspor 4-0 in Turkey.

The Italians scored three times in the opening 27 minutes through Henrique, Gonzalo Higuain and Manolo Gabbiadini, before Duvan Zapata added a fourth in second-half stoppage-time.

Roma and Feyenoord played out a 1-1 draw in a game marred by earlier clashes between visiting fans and Italian riot police, while Torino were also frustrated on the field, pegged back in a 2-2 home draw with Athletic Bilbao. 

Elsewhere, in-form Dutch striker Das Bost scored twice in Wolfsburg's 2-0 win over Sporting Lisbon, taking his tally to 10 goals in six games in all competitions, and defending champion Sevilla edged past Borussia Moenchengladbach 1-0 through Vicente Iborra's goal.

Brazil forward Hulk scored Zenit St Petersburg's goal in a 1-0 win at PSV Eindhoven, and there were also wins for Ajax, Villarreal, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Club Brugge.

Highly rated winger Claudio Beauvue sparked little-known Guingamp's recovery from a goal down against Dynamo Kiev, scoring his 20th goal in all competitions to help the French team win 2-1.

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The other game of the night saw Anderlecht held to a goalless draw at home to Dinamo Moscow, who had Alexander Buttner sent off in the 75th minute.

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