Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio and PSG Run Riot: A Full Europa League Roundup

Tottenham Hotspur produced one of the headline performances of the UEFA Europa League Playoffs with a 5-0 first leg victory at British rivals Hearts.

Rafael van der Vaart, Jermain Defoe and Jake Livermore fired Tottenham into a first half lead before Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon finished off the Scots.

After sitting out the opening EPL weekend due to London Riots aftermath, Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp will be pleased his team have hit the ground running.  “We moved the ball around quickly, and that is how I like to see us play.” said Redknapp.

Lazio and Paris Saint-Germain were also in fine scoring form and left their opponents with a seemingly impossible task in the second leg. 

Djibril Cisse and Miroslav Klose were among the scorers as Lazio beat Rabotnicki 6-0, and Jeremy Menez and Ceara scored in injury time to run the score up to 4-0 as PSG won at Differdange.

In a battle of ex-Tottenham managers, Martin Jol led Fulham to a 3-0 win over Juande Ramos’ Dnipro.  Fellow EPL team Stoke won 1-0 at FC Thun, while nPower Championship team Birmingham City drew 0-0 at Nacional.

It was a bad night for Scottish teams in Europe.  In addition to the 5-0 beating suffered by Hearts, Celtic drew 0-0 at home to FC Sion, while SPL Champions Rangers threw away a half-time lead and were beaten 2-1 at NK Maribor.

The defeat could heap pressure on rookie Rangers boss Ally McCoist, who has already seen his team crash out of the UEFA Champions League qualifying stages.

Other impressive performances saw Maccabo Tel-Aviv beat Olympiakos 3-0 and Steaua Bucharest beat CSKA Sofia 2-0.

The upset of the night occurred in Slovakia, where Roma were beaten 1-0 at Slovan Bratislava.