By DPA,
Hamburg : English Premier League side Aston Villa Thursday came from behind to beat a nine-man Litex Lovech side 3-1 in a first leg, first round UEFA Cup match.
In another game Thursday, German Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart alo came from behind to beat another Bulgarian club, Cherno More Varna.
Stuttgart fell behind three minutes from the break when Tanko Dyakov scored with a header from a Yordan Yurukov header.
The visitors were much stronger in the second 45 minutes as they managed to pull two goals back to be in an excellent position ahead of the replay in a fortnight.
Both goals were scored by German international Mario Gomez. The striker equalised for his side in the 66th minute when he managed to push the ball over the line from a close distance. He added a second nine minutes from the end after being set-up by Ludovic Magnin.
In Lovech the home side scored first through Ivelin Popov in the 10th minute with a free-kick, that eluded friend and foe alike and then slipped past Villa goalkeeper Brad Friedel.
The home side had a strong penalty appeal turned down five minutes later, shortly before Gareth Barry’s headed goal for Villa was ruled off for offside.
Lovech should then have gone ahead just before the break after Wilfried Niflore went around Friedel, only to see his shot hit the side-netting.
They were penalised for their miss a minute before the break when Nigel Reo-Coker scored after a mistake by Lovech goalkeeper Uros Golubovic.
On the hour the home side were reduced to ten men when Cedric Cambon was sent off for a second bookable offence. 12 minutes later they had Mihail Venkov red carded for a handball on the line.