Drogba scores hat trick; FC Barcelona rallies for draw; Inter loses again

Tuesday, September 26th 2006, 10:27 pm

By: News On 6

LONDON (AP) _ Didier Drogba scored a hat trick in Chelsea's 3-1 win at Levski Sofia on Wednesday, and FC Barcelona needed a late equalizer to draw 1-1 at Werder Bremen in the Champions League.

Drogba scored in the 39th, 52nd and 68th minutes, while Group A rival and defending champion Barcelona required Lionel Messi's 89th-minute score to cancel out captain Carles Puyol's own goal.

Chelsea has six points, Barcelona has four, Bremen one and Levski zero.

``OK, I scored three goals and I am very happy, but the most important thing in the Champions League is to win away,'' Drogba said.

Two-time champion Inter Milan lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich and finished the match with nine players. It was Inter's second straight loss in Europe and leaves the Italian champion in trouble in Group B.

In other matches, it was: Liverpool 3, Galatasaray 2 and Bordeaux 0, PSV Eindhoven 1 in Group C; Spartak Moscow 1, Sporting Lisbon 1 in Group B; Shakhtar Donetsk 2, Olympiakos 2 and Valencia 2, AS Roma 1 in Group D.

Drogba scored his first goal when John Obi Mikel's shot was blocked by Levski goalkeeper Georgi Petkov. The Ivory Coast striker's second came after he chested a long pass and netted under Petkov.

Midfielder Frank Lampard set up Drogba for his third goal.

``We are not playing super football, still some players with room to improve, but still we are OK,'' Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said.

Levski, beaten 5-0 by Barcelona two weeks ago, scored a consolation goal through Maryan Ognyano.

In Group C, Peter Crouch scored two goals as Liverpool led 3-0 before holding off a fast-finishing Galatasaray. He scored in the ninth minute and followed up with a spectacular scissors kick in the 52nd.

Luis Garcia added the other goal in the 14th minute.

Umit Karan had two second-half goals in seven minutes to bring the Turkish club back into the game.

``It shouldn't have been that nervy,'' Crouch said. ``It was a confident 3-0 and we just wanted to see the game out. We worked so hard in the first half, maybe it caused a lapse in the second half.''

PSV Eindhoven's Mika Vayrynen scored in the 65th minute on a cross by Diego Tardelli in the other group match. Liverpool and PSV both have four points, with Galatasaray and Bordeaux on one.

In Group B, Inter Milan played with 10 men from the 58th minute when Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sent off for a second yellow card. Bayern Munich broke the deadlock in the 81st through Claudio Pizarro.

Inter defender Fabio Grosso received a straight red card in the 85th for an elbow, before Lukas Podolski scored Bayern's second goal in injury time.

Sporting Lisbon, which beat Inter 1-0 two weeks ago, drew 1-1 at Spartak Moscow on Wednesday.

Nani scored a second-half equalizer for Sporting after Spartak's Denis Boyarintsev opened the scoring in the fifth minute with a curling shot past goalkeeper Ricardo from the edge of the area.

Bayern has six points, with Sporting on four, Spartak on one and Inter on zero.

In Group D, David Villa scored one goal and set up another for Valencia.

Villa crossed for Miguel Angel Angulo to score the opener in the 13th, and he scored the winner on a pass from Marco Cassetti in the 29th. AS Roma's Francesco Totti scored on an 18th-minute penalty.

``It was a very important win. We've not achieved anything yet, but six points in a difficult group like this one could be definitive,'' Valencia striker Fernando Morientes told Canal Plus TV.

In Donetsk, Ukraine, Olympiakos' Nery Alberto Castillo scored one goal and set up another. He evaded two challenges to cross for Michalis Konstantinou to score in the 24th.

Ten minutes later, Shakhtar Donestk equalized when Tomas Hubschman diverted a free kick from Francelino Matuzalem into the goal.

Castillo put Olympiakos ahead in the 68th, only for Ciprian Marica to level two minutes later.

Valencia leads the group with six points, Roma has three and Olympiakos and Shakhtar have one.

On Tuesday, Raul Gonzalez became the Champions League all time scorer when he scored twice in Real Madrid's 5-1 win over Dynamo Kiev. He has scored 53 goals in Europe's elite club competition _ one more than Andriy Shevchenko.

In other matches, it was: Steaua Bucharest 0, Lyon, 3; Arsenal 2, FC Porto 0; CSKA Moscow 1, Hamburg 0; Benfica 0, Manchester United 1; Celtic 1, FC Copenhagen 0; AEK 1, Anderlecht 1; and Lille 0, AC Milan 0.