Defending champion Sevilla was held to a 0-0 draw by Slovan Liberec in its opening group game in the UEFA Cup on Thursday while English teams swept all three of their games.

Blackburn won 2-1 at Poland's Wisla Krakow, Tottenham posted a 2-0 victory at Besiktas and Newcastle beat another Turkish club, Fenerbahce, 1-0.

Sevilla's failure to win in the Czech Republic means that Louis van Gaal's AZ Alkmaar, which reached the semifinal two seasons ago, topped Group C by outplaying Belgium's Braga 3-0 thanks to goals by Georgian striker Shota Arveladze, Danny Koevermans and Stijn Schaars.

David Bentley scored the winner with two minutes remaining to complete Blackburn's rally in Krakow as Mark Hughes made a strong start in Group E.

Brad Friedel was powerless to stop a shot from Mauro Cantoro, which deflected off Rovers midfielder Tugay Kerimoglu. After Robbie Savage equalized, Friedel thwarted Paulista before Bentley scored Blackburn's winner.

The result put Rovers atop the group because Basel and Feyenoord drew 1-1.

Goals by Hossam Ghaly and Dimitar Berbatov paced Tottenham over Besiktas and put Martin Jol's team atop Group B. Club Brugge and Bayer Leverkusen drew 1-1.

Antoine Sibierski scored the only goal with 11 to go as Newcastle edged Fenerbahce at St. James' Park. In the other game in Group H _ the toughest of the eight _ Palermo came from behind to win 2-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt with Italian World Cup player Cristian Zaccardo heading in the winner in the 87th minute.

Parma was another Italian winner. Daniele Dessena and Igor Budan scored to lead a 2-1 victory at Denmark's Odense in Group D and push Parma to the top top because of a 0-0 draw between Osasuna and Heerenveen.

Israel's Maccabi Haifa took the Group A lead with a 3-1 victory over French club Auxerre with goals by Alain Masudi, Gustavo Boccoli and Roberto Colautti.

Rangers 3-2 victory at Italy's Livorno included a spell of four goals in eight minutes in the first half.

Charlie Adam started the scoring binge in the 27th minute and Kris Boyd's penalty put the Scottish club ahead 2-0 before Christiano Lucarelli converted a penalty for Livorno and Nacho Novo made it 3-1 in the 35th. Lucarelli scored a second for the Italian club in the final minute.

Tim Matthys scored three times as Zulte Waregem won 4-1 at Austria Vienna to lead Group F. Espanyol won 2-0 at Sparta Prague to move into second.

Panathinaikos beat Hapoel Tel Aviv 2-0 in Group G, with Argentine Sebastian Romero forcing an own-goal by Tal Chen and then scoring the second himself. Rapid Bucharest and Paris Saint-Germain finished 0-0.

© The Canadian Press, 2007