Roux hails spirit as Lens rally

Guy Roux's return to French football was a happy one but his RC Lens side had to come from behind to oust Ukrainian opponents FC Chornomorets Odesa and advance to the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup.

Coulibaly header
A capacity crowd was on hand to see if the veteran coach could lend his magic touch to the home side and take Lens a step closer to the UEFA Cup. However, those supporters were in for a rude awakening as Oleh Venhlinskiy stole in unmarked at the far post in the tenth minute to meet Serhiy Shyshchenko's bouncing free-kick and nod in the opening goal. Fortunately for the hosts, an equaliser arrived eight minutes later when defender Adama Coulibaly headed Olivier Monterrubio's corner past Vitaliy Rudenko.

New signings
With the visitors still leading by virtue of the away goal the onus was on Lens to attack and new signings Julien Sablé and Akalé combined delightfully to edge the tie in the hosts' favour. Sablé found Akalé with a fine raking pass which the striker controlled before skipping past three defenders and Rudenko and finishing precisely.

'Interesting'
The Ivorian international struck again18 minutes from time when he pounced on a clever pass by Bonaventure Kalou, who himself only joined the club from Paris Saint-Germain FC last Wednesday, to score his second goal of the evening. "It was interesting because we conceded the first goal and had to score twice to go through," said Roux. "My players did not give up though despite a poor first 20 minutes."