Marseille beats 10-man Ajax 2-1 in UEFA Cup

LONDON (AP)—Marseille beat another former European champion, downing Ajax 2-1 Thursday to make itself a favorite to reach the UEFA Cup quarterfinals.
Benoit Cheyrou and Mamadou Niang scored for Marseille to give the French club a slim lead heading to next week’s return leg in Amsterdam, although Ajax may be happy with the margin of defeat after it played more than half the game with 10 men.
Another former European champion, Hamburg, equalized 5 minutes into the second half to draw 1-1 with 10-man Galatasaray.
Also, Udinese beat defending champion Zenit St. Petersburg 2-0; Manchester City beat Aalborg 2-0; and CSKA Moscow, Werder Bremen and Dynamo Kiev won.
Cheyrou put 1993 Champions League winner Marseille ahead 1-0 in the 19th minute with a powerful left-footed shot into the bottom corner from about 25 yards. Niang doubled the advantage in the 33rd with a close-range shot, but Luis Suarez got a goal back for Ajax on a penalty kick awarded for Vitorino Hilton’s foul on Eyong Enoh.
Ajax, though, lost Gregory van der Wiel in the 42nd after he got two yellow cards in 5 minutes, ruling him out of the March 18 return leg.
Italy forwards Fabio Quagliarella and Antonio Di Natale scored in the final 5 minutes to give Udinese a 2-0 win over Zenit and what could be a decisive cushion.
“We did well to play our game until the end,” Di Natale said. “Going there with a 2-0 lead is a big advantage.”
Quagliarella redirected an 85th-minute cross by Simone Pepe into an empty net for his fifth goal in this season’s competition, and Di Natale converted a penalty kick in the third minute of injury time.
Manchester City’s Felipe Caicedo and Shaun Wright-Phillips struck in the first 30 minutes against Aalborg.
“We have to go there next week and not concede too early or we’ll be on the back foot,” City midfielder Stephen Ireland said. “But so far, so good.”
Galatasaray, the 2000 UEFA Cup champion, took the lead at Hamburg in the 33rd minute when Ayhan Akman hit a low shot in off the post from the edge of the area. But Marcell Jansen volleyed in from close range after Mladen Petric headed a cross by Jose Pablo Guerrero back across the area.
The Turkish team had to play the last 37 minutes with 10 men after Emre Asik was sent off for a foul on Petric.
Werder Bremen beat Saint-Etienne 1-0 on a 20th-minute goal by defender Naldo.
Dynamo Kiev beat fellow Ukrainian team Metalist Kharkiv 1-0 through a 54th-minute goal by Ognjen Vukojevic, while Vagner Love scored a 50th-minute penalty kick to give CSKA Moscow a 1-0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk.
Paris Saint-Germain drew 0-0 with visiting Braga in the other of Thursday’s eight games.