Champions League Qualifying(3rd Round): Anorthosis Stun Olympiacos In Opener; No Problems For Barca Versus Wisla Krakow; BATE Top Levski In Game One

The opening matches of fifteen two-match series in the third round of qualifying for the 2008-09 UEFA Champions League took place on Wednesday:

At Larnaca, Cyprus:

Goals courtesy of Vasilis Torosidis (scoring an own goal), Lukasz Sosin, and Vincent Laban propelled Anorthosis Famagusta to a 3-0 home win in game one of their two-match set with Greek champions (and round-of-16 entry from last season) Olympiacos.

At Turin, Italy:

A goal each from Mauro Camoranesi (7'), Alessandro Del Piero (26'), Giorgio Chiellini (39'), and Nicola Legrottaglie (90') helped power Jeventus to a 4-0 home fistbeating of Slovakian club Artmedia Petrzalka in the opening match of their two-game set.

At Sofia, Bulgaria:

Vladimir Rzveksiy scored the only goal (60') of game one, which saw Belorussian club BATE Borisov blank Levski Sofia 1-0 on the road. After the match, Levski coach Velislav Vutsov immediately resigned.

At Moscow:

Two goals each from Ismael Bangoura (28', 46') and Artem Milevskiy (45', 85') propelled Dynamo Kiev to a 4-1 road hammering of Spartak Moscow in the opening match of their two-game series.

At Istanbul, Turkey:

Galatasaray, thanks to Shabani Nonda's double (18', 47'), came back from a two-goal deficit to gain a 2-2 home draw in the opening game with Steaua Bucharest. Steaua, though, will be heading back to the Romanian capital for game two with the advantage because of two away goals, scored by Dairo Moreno (4') and Banel Nicolita (12').

At Liege, Belgium:

The opening match between visiting five-time European champs Liverpool and Standard de Liege ended up as a 0-0 stalemate.

At Prague, Czech Republic:

Simao scored the game-winning goal at 60 minutes, to lift Panathinaikos to a 2-1 road win over Sparta Prague in game one of their two-match set.

At Bergen, Norway:

Benoit Cheyrou scored the only goal of the match (40') as Marseille took game one on the road 1-0 over SK Brann.

At Arnhem, Netherlands:

William Gallas (63') and Emmanuel Adebayor (82') provided the second-half scoring punch that paced Arsenal to a 2-0 road win over FC Twente in game one of the two-match set.

At Aalborg, Denmark:

Caca (71') and Jeppe Curth (86') used their noggins as each scored with a second-half header to lead Aalborg BK to a 2-0 game one home win over Lithuanian club FBK Kaunas.

At Donetsk, Ukraine:

Darijo Srna (PK-3') and Jadson (31') provided the first-half tallies that lifted Shakhtar Donetsk to a series-opening 2-0 home win over Dinamo Zagreb.

At Gelsenkirchen, Germany:

Christian Pander provided the only goal of the match with a successful free kick at 30 minutes to lead FC Schalke 04 to a 1-0 home win in game one over Atletico Madrid.

At Guimaraes, Portugal:

Swiss club FC Basel 1893 held Vitoria de Guimaraes to a 0-0 deadlock in game one.

At Belgrade, Serbia:

Thanks to goals from Alex (PK-45') and Daniel Guiza (50'), Fenerbahce came back from a two-goal deficit to gain a 2-2 road draw in game one of their series with Partizan Belgrade. Veljko Paunovic (11') and Milos Bugonovic (14') each tallied once to give Partizan the early advantage.

At Barcelona:

Samuel Eto'o scored twice (17', 83') and Xavi Hernandez (24') and Thierry Henry (49') each tallied once as Barcelona delivered a 4-0 game one frontier-styled fistbeating to Wisla Krakow before the home fans.