European roundup: Barcelona edge past Osasuna, PSG thrash rock-bottom Lyon

  • 9/3/2023
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Robert Lewandowski’s late penalty earned Barcelona a hard-fought 2-1 La Liga win at Osasuna on Sunday evening. Lewandowski converted from the spot in the 85th minute after Alejandro Catena grabbed the Poland forward’s right arm inside the penalty area. The defender was shown a red card for the last man-foul, before Lewandowski scored with a tidy finish to the goalkeeper’s left. Despite being under pressure for long periods of the game, Barça took the lead just before half time when defender Jules Koundé headed home from a corner. That lead lasted until the 76th minute when Chimy Ávila produced a superb equaliser, his curling shot from the edge of the box going in off the post. The defending league champions rallied to earn victory, though, and are third in the table on 10 points, level with Girona, who continued their impressive start as Portu marked his return with a late winner against Las Palmas. Both sides trail the leaders, Real Madrid, by two points. Sunday’s match between Atlético and Sevilla was postponed due to the extremely high risk of flooding in Madrid. The decision to call off the game was announced at lunchtime, with the Spanish capital braced for record levels of rainfall. Elsewhere, Mallorca drew 0-0 with Athletic Bilbao. In Ligue 1, Kylian Mbappé scored twice as Paris Saint-Germain romped to a 4-1 away triumph over troubled Lyon, who sit bottom of the table after four games. Mbappe put the visitors in front with a fourth-minute penalty, awarded after Manuel Ugarte was scythed down by the home captain, Corentin Tolisso. Achraf Hakimi made it two in the 20th minute, finishing after Ousmane Dembélé’s low cross slipped out of keeper Anthony Lopes’s grasp. Marco Asensio scored the third in the 38th minute, slotting home from Ugarte’s pass after Gianluigi Donnarumma had denied Tolisso at the other end. Mbappé deepened the misery for the home side just before the break with a dinked finish for his fifth league goal of the season. Tolisso netted a second-half consolation from the penalty spot for the home side, but Les Gones now have a single point from their opening four games and coach Laurent Blanc’s future looks increasingly uncertain. PSG move up to second in the table, two points behind Monaco. Elsewhere, Nice earned their first victory of the season and climbed above opponents Strasbourg with a 2-0 home win, Youcef Atal and Terem Moffi getting the goals. Clermont earned their first point of the season thanks to Florent Ogier’s equaliser six minutes into stoppage time at Toulouse. Yusuf Yazici’s second-minute goal was enough for Lille to defeat Montpellier, who saw Kelvin Yeboah’s 88th-minute equaliser ruled out by VAR. Le Havre earned their first win of the season with a comprehensive 3-0 home victory over Lorient, while fellow promoted side Metz drew 2-2 with Reims. RB Leipzig struck three times in the second half to beat 10-man Union Berlin 3-0 in the Bundesliga, ending their opponents’ club-record unbeaten run at home. Benjamin Sesko, on as a substitute, scored twice in two minutes late in the game after Xavi Simons had put the visitors ahead with a spectacular drive. Union, who had summer signing Kevin Volland sent off, fell to their first league defeat at the Alte Försterei stadium in 24 matches. After a low-key first half, Simons broke the deadlock in the 51st minute, finding enough space on the edge of the box to fire an unstoppable shot into the top corner. It got worse when Volland was shown a straight red card for a foul on Mohamed Simakan, and Sesko struck in the 85th and 87th minutes to secure victory. RB Leipzig move to six points, level with Union and three behind Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen, who have won all three of their opening league matches. In Sunday’s other match, Cologne earned their first point of the season but were denied victory at Eintracht Frankfurt by Niels Nkounkou’s late equaliser for the hosts.

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