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Cape Town - There were big wins for Fiorentina and Roma in the Europa League on Thursday, but Serie A rivals Internazionale suffered another shock defeat in the group stages.
Frank de Boer's Inter have now lost their opening two games in Group K after they were beaten 3-1 by Sparta Prague at the Generali Arena.
A first-half brace from Vaclav Kadlec gave Iron Sparta a 2-0 lead at the break, although Rodrigo Palacio halved the deficit on 71 minutes.
However, the Nerazzurri were reduced to 10-men four minutes later Andrea Ranocchia was dismissed for a second bookable offence, before Mario Holek restored the hosts' two-goal cushion within a minute of the sending -off.
Elsewhere, Roma picked up their first win in the competition with a 4-0 thrashing of Astra Giurgiu at the Stadio Olimpico.
First-half goals from Kevin Strootman and Federico Fazio saw the Giallorossi in control at the break, with an own-goal from Fabrício and Mohamed Salah's 54th-minute effort wrapping up the win in the second half.
Fiorentina also claimed their first victory in the group stages as they hammered 10-man Qarabag 5-1 at the Stadio Artemio Franchi.
The visitors were facing an uphill battle when Elvin Yunuszada was shown a straight red card on the half-hour mark for a deliberate handball.
La Viola would soon capitalise on their superiority in numbers as Khouma Babacar opened the scoring nine minutes later and Nikola Kalinic doubled their lead on 43 minutes.
Babacar then scored his second goal of the game on the stroke of half-time to put the result beyond doubt, while Mauro Zarate bagged a brace in the second half to complete the rout, with Dino Ndlovu grabbing a late consolation in stoppage time for the champions of Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, Manchester United also got their European campaign up and running as they edged out Zorya Luhansk 1-0 at Old Trafford, the winner coming from the head of Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the 69th minute.
Southampton remain unbeaten in the group stages after they were held to a goalless draw by Hapoel Be'er Sheva at the Turner Stadium in Israel, while Ajax made it two wins from two as Kasper Dolberg's 28th-minute goal saw them beat Standard Liege 1-0 at the Amsterdam ArenA.
Eredivisie high flyers Feyenoord, who beat the Red Devils last time out, suffered their first defeat of the season - going down 1-0 to Fenerbahce at the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium with Emmanuel Emenike scoring the winner in the 18th minute.
Thursday's results in full:
Astana 0-0 Young Boys
Qabala 2-3 Mainz
Ajax 1-0 Standard Liege
Celta Vigo 2-0 Panathinaikos
Gent 2-0 Konyaspor
Shakhtar Donetsk 2-0 Braga
Krasnodar 5-2 Nice
Schalke 3-1 Salzburg
Fiorentina 5-1 Qarabag
Liberec 1-2 PAOK Salonika
Hapoel Be'er Sheva 0-0 Southampton
Sparta Prague 3-1 Internazionale
FC Zurich 2-1 Osmanlispor
Steaua Bucuresti 1-1 Villarreal
Fenerbahce 1-0 Feyenoord
Manchester United 1-0 Zorya Luhansk
Olympiakos 0-1 Apoel Nicosia
Saint-Etienne 1-1 Anderlecht
Dundalk 1-0 Maccabi Tel-Aviv
Zenit 4-0 AZ
Roma 4-0 Astra Giurgiu
Austria Wien 0-0 Viktoria Plzen
Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Rapid Wien
Genk 3-1 Sassuolo
