Serhou Guirassy scored one and set up another in Borussia Dortmund’s 3-0 victory at Sporting in their Champions League playoff first leg to put last year’s finalists in the driving seat for a spot in the last 16.
The top scorer in this season’s Champions League headed in his 10th goal of the competition on the hour mark before providing Pascal Gross with a perfect assist to double the lead in the 68th minute.
Karim Adeyemi added another in the 82nd minute, completing a five-touch counterattack to seal a winning European debut on the Dortmund bench for Niko Kovac, who took over last week and saw his team lose at home to VfB Stuttgart in the league on Saturday.
The Portuguese side hit the woodwork in a solid first half but quickly ran out of gas after the break. The return leg in Dortmund is next Wednesday.
Samuel Mbangula snatched a late winner as the Juventus beat PSV Eindhoven 2-1 in the first leg of their playoff.
The Belgian substitute’s 82nd-minute finish handed Juve a slender advantage to take to the Netherlands for next week’s return leg after PSV fought back from a half-time deficit.
A thunderous strike from Weston McKennie had put the hosts into a 34th minute lead but Ivan Perisic, who turned 36 this month, brought PSV level 10 minutes into the second half. Both sides, who have previously won Europe’s top club prize, had chances in a flowing game and will feel they can progress to the last 16 in the return encounter.
Paris Saint-Germain seized control of their playoff with a commanding 3-0 first-leg win at Brest on Tuesday, driven by two goals from Ousmane Dembélé.
The match, which marked only the second time two French sides had faced each other in Champions League history, was dominated by a clinical PSG despite Brest also having their chances.
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PSG broke the deadlock after 21 minutes, with Vitinha converting a penalty after Pierre Lees-Melou’s handball. The visitors doubled their lead when Dembélé cut inside from the right flank and beat the keeper at his near post with a low strike, scoring in his eighth consecutive match for PSG.
In the 66th minute, Dembélé grabbed his second, latching on to a loose ball in the box before sending a shot past Brest keeper Marco Bizot.
The result leaves Brest with a mountain to climb in the return leg at the Parc des Princes.
