October 22
Jamie Carragher said it best in the preamble to the CBS Post-Game: “What a show we have for you tonight!”
Real Madrid 5-2 Borussia Dortmund
Anyone watching this game at 60 minutes would be forgiven for calling it over. Real had just hit the woodwork twice in quick succession and it looked to not be their night. Then. THEN. Rüdiger. Lucas. Vinicius Jr. with a hat-trick that should secure his Ballon d’Or win.
Aston Villa 2-0 Bologna
Villa makes a sandwich out of Bologna. But snarky headlines aside, the fact that Villa was TOP OF THE TABLE after Tuesday’s game is completely crackers. Oh, and was that a Jhon Durán goal off the bench? You better believe it!
Arsenal 1-0 Shaktar Donensk
Trossard misses a PK. Arsenal’s score was an own goal. Raya makes a late save. This was not a win, Gunners fans, it was a freaking gift.
Girona 2-0 Slovan Bratislava
Slovan continued their long and tortuous journey through the opening round with another scoreless performance on the road. A visit from the Slovak side was just what league debutants Girona needed to notch their first Champions League victory.
Juventus 0-1 Stuttgart
Juve was lucky to only lose by one, though in this case “luck” was spelled “Mattia Perin” (Juventus’ keeper). Plenty of controversial VAR/referee action in this one: goal called back; red card issued. But El Bilal Touré’s 92nd minute winner was truly gorgeous, and gave the better team the victory. How much better were Stuttgart? 22 shots to Juve’s 8; 58 attacks to 33; 10 corners to 4.
PSG 1-1 PSV
Teams of PSG’s caliber shouldn’t tie clubs like PSV. But PSG also went 400+ minutes before Achraf Hakimi bagged the equalizer (with some help from a keeper with more holes than a wheel of Leerdammer kaas) and saved PSG’s honor.
AC Milan 3-1 Club Brugge
Christian Pulisic hit an Olympico (that’s a goal from a direct corner) to kick off the scoring, then Tijjani Reijnders took over. Brugge looked sharp until going a man down in the 40th.
October 23
Within the first 10 minutes of our seven later matches we had goals from: Barcelona, Atletico Madrid & Manchester City. The big boys came to ball, y’all!
Atalanta 0-0 Celtic
Kasper Schmeichel and the Celtic back four (Valle, Scales, Trusty [Editor: “great name for a center back”], Johnston) deserve all the credit for steadfastly absorbing everything an impassioned Atalanta team threw at them. Kudos as well to the crossbar for denying Mario Pašalić’s header. Critical away point for the Glaswegians.
Brest 1-1 Bayer Leverkusen
Holding Leverkusen and maintaining their unbeaten run is a huge accomplishment for a minnow-level club like Brest. Brest goalscorer Pierre Lees-Melou said it best: “I think a lot of people thought we were going to be on the end of a hammering before kick-off, but we certainly didn’t embarrass ourselves. It proves that we’re a team that has heart, that plays together.“
Barcelona 4-1 Bayern Munich
This was the one. The big kahuna. The granddaddy fixture of Match Week 3. Kane! Lewandowski! Each icon scored, but the night belonged to Raphinha who bagged an impressive hat-trick on the evening in the 1st, 48th and 56th minutes.
Manchester City 5-0 Sparta Praha
On a day where Ilkay Gündoğa made his 100th Champions League start, Phil Foden stepped up to steal the Turk’s thunder with a laser strike in the 3rd minute. To their credit, Sparta rallied to keep the home team honest until the half. But only to the half. John Stones earned his second goal in as many games while Erling Haaland nabbed a brace to put the hurt on the visitors. “Nabbed a brace” drips with insouciance (see below for why):
Atletico Madrid 1-3 Lille
Before this match, the question of the day was: “Could Les Dogues be a Madrid-club killer a second time?” It didn’t look that way when Ousmane Toure’s blunder resulted in Julián Álvarez’s goal in the 9th minute. But substitute Edon Zhegrova’s left-footed effort in the 61st got a slight deflection to push it past the keeper, and a protracted, controversial PK in the 74th was coolly converted by Jonathan David. In the 88th minute when Lille was on the attack the announcer drolly quipped: “Surely they’re not going to get another one?” 10 seconds later, they did.
Leipzig 0-1 Liverpool
This was a sparky and evenly-matched contest for the most part, Liverpool being denied twice by the keeper Péter Gulácsi and Benjamin Šeško with a brace of chances. But Darwin Nuñez poaching in a Salah header across goal proved the difference.
Red Bull Salzberg 0-2 GNK Dinamo
The first half was best described as more chess than football, such was the careful play evinced by both sides. But that second half flipped the script, GNK Dinamo coming off the whistle with furor and intensity. Sandro Kulenović slotted home a screamer in the 50th to give the visitors the edge, and when Salzberg keeper Alexander Schlager drew red in the 66th the home team’s job became exponentially more difficult. Bruno Petrović came off the bench to put the match to bed.
Benfica 1-3 Feyenoord
Happily, I will not be updating this report with an adult-oriented xeet from Insónias en Carvão. Benfica got seriously rogered by the lads from Rotterdam, in particular Antoni Milambo who nabbed a brace and MOTM.
Young Boys 0-1 Inter Milan
The surprise here was the nil-nil scoreline at half; I fully expected the Swiss to have been cooked and served by the whistle. And when Marko Arnautović’s PK was blocked by David von Ballmoos you’d be hard-pressed into thinking it JUST might be Young Boys’ night. But, alas, Marcus Thuram poked one in three minutes into stoppage.
The Standings
‘eaven
‘urgatory
‘ell
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