By Brian Homewood
BERNE (Reuters) – Samuel Eto’o scored twice to give ambitious Anzhi Makhachkala a 2-0 Europa League win over Young Boys on Thursday while Videoton and Sparta Prague pulled off surprise wins.
Eto’o, who last week ended his stand-off with Cameroon officials and agreed to play for his country again, converted a 62th minute penalty against the run of play.
He then turned in Oleg Shatov’s cross in the last minute to complete a 2-0 win over the Swiss side and extend Anzhi’s unbeaten run to seven matches in the competition, including the qualifiers.
The match was played in front of a sparse crowd in Moscow, where Anzhi are playing for security reasons after UEFA refused to let them stage matches in the violence-plagued Dagestan region.
Videoton gave Hungarian football a rare boost with a 3-0 win over Sporting, the goals coming in the first half from Paulo Vinicius, Filipe Oliveira and Nemanja Nikolic, while Sparta Prague beat last season’s runners-up Athletic Bilbao 3-1.
Inter Milan enjoyed an easy 3-1 win at Azerbaijan’s Neftci thanks to first-half goals from Philippe Coutinho, Joel Obi and Marko Livaja, all set up by Colombian Fredy Guarin.
Compatriots Lazio scraped a 1-0 win at home to Slovenia’s Maribor with a 62nd minute goal by Brazilian Ederson.
Former England manager Steve McClaren’s Twente Enschede narrowly avoided a shock defeat at Helsingborg after Rasmus Bengtsson and Douglas scored in the last quarter of an hour to give them a 2-2 draw.
Two goals from Nicola Djurdic had put the Swedes 2-0 ahead at halftime.