The newly reformed UEFA Champions League kicked off this week, with a three-day long football festival filled with clashes all across the continent. We bring you an overview of the round and the teams’ performances to keep you in line with the happenings in case you missed out on the action.
Day One – Cloud Nine for Bayern, (another) dream debut for Endrick
Tuesday’s action was opened by 6 matches, with two of them having an earlier kick-off.
Aston Villa made it through a rough start in Switzerland and managed to secure a big away win against Young Boys while Juventus went two up against PSV in the opening 30 minutes and kept the advantage until the end.
The talk of the day was definitely Bayern Munich’s huge win over Dinamo Zagreb with a scoreline you don’t see every day. The Croatian side now have the negative record of being the only team in the history of the Champions League to concede nine goals in a single match. The consequences were felt shortly after, with head coach Sergej Jakirović leaving the club. Harry Kane found the net four times which meant we didn’t have to wait for too long to get our first perfect rating of the new season.
In Spain, however, the headlines were reserved for Real Madrid’s latest Brazilian gem. Young Endrick scored the game’s final goal and sentenced a solid win over Stuttgart with a nice effort from outside the box. What impressed many, particularly his teammate Rodrygo, is the fact that despite having Kylian Mbappé running into empty space on one side and Vinícius Júnior doing the same on the other, the youngster decided to take care of things himself. Certainly a sign of a strong character, albeit at the timid age of 18.
Gyökeres found the net for Sporting again, but that’s no news. Elsewhere, AC Milan fell to a strong-looking Liverpool squad in a true European classic, a re-run of the 2005 and 2007 finals.
Day Two – Mighty Celtic and… not much else
Speaking of re-runs of the previous finals, day two saw another, very recent, one: Manchester City were host to Internazionale Milano at the Etihad. From a tactical perspective, it was a very interesting match and probably the richest one in that aspect, but it lacked a couple of goals to turn it into a classic. Both Ederson and Yann Sommer were on a high level on that night and both managed to keep a clean sheet.
Girona were holding on to a point against PSG in their historic UCL debut, but an unfortunate error from Gazzaniga who was briliant troughout the game handed the points to Les Parisiens.
Sparta Prague dismantled RB Salzburg with the same scoreline with which Dortmund won in Brugge, but the cream of the crop was Celtic’s five-goal triumph at home against Slovan Bratislava.
Day Three – Barça’s first defeat, Raya saves Arsenal
The final day of this week’s action saw some interesting matchups and scorelines.
Stade Brestois opened their fairytale story in the best possible way – a win in front of their home crowd in what was their first ever European match. Bayer Leverkusen looked like their best version as they got the job don in the first half against Feyenoord, scoring all 4 of the game’s goal in the opening 45′, led by an inspired Florian Wirtz.
Atalanta and Arsenal competed in a tightly contested, probably overly cautious match that could have gone to Atalanta if it weren’t for David Raya – he stopped Mateo Retegui’s effort from the penalty spot and then made a crazy recovery save on the rebound to keep the scores intact and save the point for The Gunners.
Thursday’s best show was probably on Stade Louis II in Monte Carlo, where Monaco met FC Barcelona. The mouth-watering matchup went wrong for Barça very early as Eric García saw the red card in the 11th minute. Monaco took advantage soon, but Barcelona came back thanks to Lamine Yamal’s solo effort. They couldn’t, however, survive the full 90 without conceding another one and suffered their first defeat of the season.
This could prove to be a massive confidence boost to a well-organized, aggressive and attractive Monaco side who enjoyed a decent start to their league campaign as well.
Top Individual performers + TOTW
As mentioned earlier, Harry Kane netted four against Dinamo Zagreb and earned the competition’s first (and thus far only) perfect Sofascore rating.
Elsewhere, goalkeepers were on some decent displays with three of them ending up as the highest-rated players in their matches. Youngster Endrick took the accolade at the Real Madrid – Stuttgart match, while another vintage Griezmann display pushed Atlético over the line against Leipzig.
