Olympique Lyon humbled at home by Astra in first leg

London: Once-mighty Olympique Lyonnais suffered huge embarrassment with a 2-1 home defeat by unheralded Romanians Astra Giurgiu in their Europa League playoff first leg on Thursday.

Lyon, who won seven French titles in a row between 2002 and 2008 and made the Champions League semi-finals in 2010, took the lead thanks to Steed Malbranque on 25 minutes. However, Nigerian Kehinde Fatai`s goal after the break and a Constantin Budescu penalty nine minutes from time boosted Astra. Lyon will still hope to turn the tie around in Romania next Thursday and qualify for the group stage of Europe`s second tier club competition. In other notable first-leg results, St Etienne were another French flop as they lost 1-0 at Kardemir Karabukspor to hand the Turks their maiden European victory while Moldova`s Zimbru Chisinau surprised Greece`s PAOK 1-0 at home. Sweden`s Markus Berg scored all four goals in Panathinaikos` 4-1 win in Greece over Danish league leaders FC Midtjylland while Legia Warsaw, thrown out of Champions League qualifying over an ineligible player, won 1-0 at Kazakhstan`s Aktobe.