Lausanne fight back; late misery for FC Zurich

Lausanne's Meyer, Lombardo and Kuzba celebrate one of Kuzba's goals Keystone

Lausanne Sports defeated Torpedo Moscow 3-2 in the first leg of their UEFA Cup first round match on Thursday. There was anguish in injury time, though, for FC Zurich who were beaten 2-1 at home by Belgium's Racing Genk.

Lausanne had to come from behind twice to ensure their home win. Polish striker Marcin Kuzba scored in the 22nd minute to cancel out Gashkin’s 14th minute opener.

The visitors went 2-1 up on the half hour, Litinov restoring Moscow’s lead. But after the break Lausanne came out with greater purpose and turned the game around within the space of three minutes.

Kuzba scored his second goal of the night shortly after the restart. Then as Moscow tried to steady their defences Mazzoni broke through and scored what turned out to be the winning goal.

Given the circumstances of the match, Lausanne will be happy to have won but they now face a difficult trip to Russia which won’t be helped by the two away goals Moscow now have in their favour.

Zurich have even less to celebrate after losing 2-1 to Racing Genk at the Letzigrund. Despite dominating the game, the locals were caught out by the Belgians’ counterattacks.

At the end of the first half the Zurich strikers had nothing to show for their near-constant pressure. In the second half they were made to pay as Genk’s Paas opened the scoring, following a missed interception by Quentin.

South African striker Shaun Bartlett pulled Zurich level in the 64th minute, but even a draw was to be denied to them. Ban scored from 30 metres on a free kick in the last few moments of injury time, surprising Zurich’s replacement goalkeeper, Trombini, who is deputising for the injured Marco Pascolo.

swissinfo with agencies