Valencia in charge, Benfica, Rangers chalk up late CL wins

Goals from Vicente, David Silva and Fernando Morientes gave the Spanish side a comfortable win in the first leg of the third qualifying round against the rank outsiders who had progressed from the first qualifying round.

 Vicente opened the account in the seventh minute before Silva struck in the 58th and Morientes completed the scoring in the 70th.

 Portugal's Benfica and Scottish side Glasgow Rangers meanwhile earned late narrow victories while Italians Lazio were held at home by Dinamo Bucharest.

 Lazio had two men sent off as they came from a goal down to salvage a 1-1 home draw against the Romanian champions.

 Midfielder Massimo Mutarelli struck eight minutes after the break for the Rome outfit to equalize a 22nd-minute effort by Ionel Danciulescu.

 Lazio's Tommaso Rocchi had earlier missed a penalty in the 38th minute, and a disappointing night for the Italians ended with Valon Behrami being shown the red card in the 72nd minute and   Mutarelli following him into the dressing room in the 86th.

 Bucharest finished the game with 10 men when Dorin Goian was also sent off in the final minute in the third dismissal of the night.

 Two goals by Manuel Rui Costa gave Portuguese giants Benfica a 2-1 win over visiting FC Copenhagen.

 Rui Costa opened the scoring for Benfica in the 25th minute and hit the winner four minutes from time after the Danish side had levelled in the 35th through Atiba Hutchinson.

 An 89th-minute goal by Nacho Novo gave Scottish hopes Glasgow Rangers a 1-0 victory at Ibrox over 1991 champions Red Star Belgrade who on Friday had replaced coach Bosko Djurovski with Milorad Kosanovic.

 Novo collected Lee McCulloch's headed flick-on and fired home a left foot shot from inside the 18-yard box.

 The rest of the round's first-leg games are being played Wednesday, with last season's runners-up Liverpool, UEFA Cup champions Sevilla, Germany's Werder Bremen, Dutch giants Ajax and 2006 losing finalists Arsenal among the teams entering the fray.

 Return-leg matches are being played on August 28 and 29, with the winners going into the draw for the 32-team main group stage.

DPA