Four defeats and many dramas.
The second day of the Champions League game proved to be very varied and full of results with varying degrees of surprise and drama. Here you have both sudden defeats and natural wins. Let’s go through all the results.
Defeat with a surprise
Four out of eight games ended with a great score. For the group stage, this is not surprising. But if you understand each case separately, you can find the nuances. For example, there is nothing fantastic in the fact that “Barcelona” beat Pilsen’s “Victoria” with a score of 5: 1. Furthermore, the Catalans owned the ball in their classic style for nearly three-quarters of the entire playing time, and Lewandowski proved to be the new leader of Barcelona’s attack, and he didn’t care which team to score goals in. lots. This time he hit the Czech opponent’s gates three times. This is the Polish’s sixth hat-trick in the Champions League. Only Ronaldo and Messi have more: eight each. And Robert overtook Benzema in the scorer contest Champions League. Only Ronaldo in advantage with Messi.
But Kessy opened the scoring, already in the 13th minute. This set the pace for everything that followed. The rivals went to rest with a score of 3: 1 in favor of the Catalans and Levadowski already had a brace. After the break, Barcelona only increased their lead by scoring two more goals. In total, the Spaniards have had 20 shots on goal, more than half of them on goal. And for Victoria, only one of eight attempts proved accurate and scoring at the same time. Barcelona are clearly on the move. He won four games in a row with a total score of 16: 2.
Ajax’s 4-0 win against Rangers was not so unexpected. Amsterdam players, despite a serious sale in the summer, always find the resources to continue playing at a high level. At least against the backdrop of the Scottish club. Therefore, the “Rangers” “flew” with a score of 0: 3 in the 33rd minute and in the second half “Ajax” was limited to one goal.
Not so confident, but still elegant on the road, Sporting defeated Eintracht Frankfurt. Last season’s Europa League miracle no longer works and luck doesn’t smile on the German club. The first half ended with a score of 0: 0, Eintracht seemed to attack more, but Sporting proved more precise in attacking impulses and managed to score three goals in less than 20 minutes in the second half, organizing a “dry” route, which few expected.
But even less, probably, anyone expected that Liverpool – one of the favorites of the entire European season – would lose a lot against Napoli. The Reds lost 1-4. In addition, they went to rest with a score of 0: 3. This is the first time since 2014 that Liverpool have lost with three goals in the first half. There have been some older “results” repeated. For example, only the second time in the Champions League under Klopp, the Reds conceded four goals and the second time they lost by three goals. And in general, the last time Liverpool conceded four goals was in February 2021, then Manchester City defeated him. And then there is Napoli.
And it cannot be said that the result is not the case. After the game, no one from Liverpool complained of some kind of injustice. Everyone was just talking about the fact that the team needs to wake up and get moving, otherwise the season will fail in its first part. And in the match Napoli hit more and more precisely, they also had a blow on the goal and an unsuccessful penalty. Liverpool differed only in ball possession, but turned out to be “sterile” and not as dangerous and emotional as the impulses of the Italians.
delicate balance
Against this backdrop, Brugge’s 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen may go almost unnoticed. And there too a whole drama took place, because for the Belgian club in the Champions League every victory is an event. And here is a chance to hang on to the continuation of the tournament fight. And Brugge clings. The outcome of the match was decided by a single ball from Silla at half-time with a mistake by Bayer Hradetsky goalkeeper.
But in general, in the game, the Germans, of course, possessed the ball more, hit the opponent’s goal more often – 14 shots to nine. However, Mignolet turned out to be more reliable than Gradetsky and did not make any mistakes. The most precious victory for all Belgian football.
In another game of this group, the drama unfolded and even more vividly. Atlético and Porto stubbornly tormented the crowd with a 0-0 draw. Entertainment was sometimes organized by “dragons”, clearly targeting strikes from all sorts of locations. They ended up hitting 17 shots to Atlético’s 10, but the number of shots on goal was 3-3.
At the end of the game something hits Taremi in the head who, after being warned, decides to run a dolphin in the penalty area of others. The referee showed him a second sham warning and sent him away. As there were many conversations with the referee and breaks – as is customary in Atlético games – the referee added ten minutes. And they were the busiest. In the 91st, Atlético took the lead thanks to Hermoso’s efforts and believed in victory. But Uribe equalized in the 95th minute from the spot. And Porto believed in a draw. Against Griezmann, who in the 100th minute scored the winning goal for the “mattress”. It should be noted that he went out again after the 60th minute. Atlético stubbornly refuses to pay Barcelona for Antoine, avoiding fulfilling an unfortunate clause in the contract.
In the spotlight
And the central fights, perhaps, were two. One of the leaders in England Premier League – “Tottenham” – hosted one of the leaders of the French league “Marseille”, who manages to go to Ligue 1 at a pace PSG and keep up with him. But the French are clearly not used to playing at a high pace on multiple fronts. Marseille have had failures in previous seasons with such dispersion.
Immediately, the Provençals were clearly inferior in all respects to the Spurs, but they held out for a long time, trying to impose a fight and even control of the ball on a foreign field. It made things easier for opponents Mbemba, who earned a red card right at the start of the second half. But even in the minority, Marseille held out for a long time. And only at the end in five minutes did I miss Richarlison twice. The expensive purchase of “spurs” begins to justify itself. It is noteworthy that in the whole game, in general, the opponents shot 27 shots, and only three of them hit the target. At Tottenham, both accurate shots turned out to be a goal.
Another match in the spotlight was the one between Inter and Bayern. But even here there were no intrigues. Even the Monaco team, deprived of Lewandowski, found the strength to face with confidence and also Inter, who have lost three of their last four games. Sané took the lead, opening the scoring midway through the first half and pushing D’Ambrosio into his own goal midway through the second.
The resistance of the Milanese was episodic, and frankly they did not understand what to do. As a result, Bayern scored 21 shots – 11 were accurate. And Inter have only nine attempts with two precise. And this reflects the superiority that the monk had in the game. It turned out to be almost like Barcelona with Victoria. And the class difference between the teams is clearly not that great.
