The French clubs Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, the Spanish champion and Manchester City, have made a strong start at the beginning of their campaign in the European Champions League by achieving important and broad victories.
At the Parc des Princes, Saint-Germain, seeking to become the second French team to win the continental title after Marseille in 1993, managed to settle the summit match against Italian Juventus in their favour, 2-1.
The French capital team presented two different faces over the course of the two halves. It was terrifying in the first and succeeded in scoring its two goals, before its performance declined in the second, but it achieved the most important by exiting a winner over its main competitor in this group.
Mbappe commented on his team’s result, saying: “We achieved the most important thing. Perhaps we could have scored more in the second half and put ourselves in a safe place. In any case, we are happy with this result.”
The hosts scored early when Neymar passed a wonderful ball over the defense towards Mbappe, who followed it “on the fly” into the net (5).
Italian giant Saint-Germain goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma saved his goal from a sure goal when he made a wonderful reaction to block the Polish striker Erkadiusz Milik from Marseille (19).
Mbappe also added the second goal after the Italian Marco Verratti and Moroccan Ashraf Hakimi exchanged the ball for the latter to pass it on a plate of gold towards Mbappe to follow “on the fly” also into the net (22).
Mbappe was playing his 54th Champions League match with Monaco and Saint-Germain, scoring 35 goals and contributing 20 assists.
Juventus came down, determined to reduce the difference, and indeed succeeded in that through the American substitute Winston McKinney with a header (53).
Serbian Dusan Vlahovic almost equalized from another header, but Donnarumma saved it brilliantly (55).
Juventus French midfielder Adrien Rabiot tried from afar with a shot from outside the area, but it passed to the side of the post (58).
Mbappe had an opportunity to score a hat-trick, but he did not manage to deal with it (64).
Neymar almost settled the result in favor of his team, but Juventus goalkeeper Mattia Perin was on the lookout for him (88).
In the same group, Benfica won an expected victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv, Israel, with two clean goals.
Triple Real Madrid
Real Madrid hit Spain hard at the start of the title defense campaign, with their big win over Scottish host Celtic 3-0.
The Royal Club, which holds the record for the number of titles in the prestigious continental competition (14), succeeded in absorbing the great enthusiasm and the strong impulse of the owners of the land in the first half, and smashed their nets with three goals in the second, alternating between the Brazilian Vinicius Junior (56), the Croatian Luka Modric (60) and the Belgian. Eden Hazard (77).
The advantage was for the Scottish team at the beginning of the match by pressing the Royal Club’s defense, which suffered a lot and was confused in dealing with the attacks of the hosts, especially through the Japanese striker, Rio Hatati.
Real Madrid suffered a painful blow with the injury of its captain, French international Karim Benzema, to his right knee, and his Italian coach, Carlo Ancelotti, pushed the Belgian international Eden Hazard (30).
Ancelotti played down the seriousness of the situation, saying: “I don’t think the injury is a concern, according to the initial assessment, but we must wait for the results of tomorrow’s tests.”
Vinicius succeeded in opening the scoring when he received a wonderful cross from the right of Valverde, followed by the Brazilian international with his right to the left of Hart (56).
Real Madrid consolidated its lead with a second goal from Hazard, who manipulated the Scottish defense from the middle of the field and passed a ball on a plate to Modric inside the area, so he, in turn, manipulated two defenders and played it brilliantly outside his right foot from close range to the right of Hart (60).
Hazard crowned his efforts by hitting the net after a coordinated attack, after which Kroos passed a cross behind the defense to Carvajal, who prepared it for the Belgian international, who followed it from close range into the goal (77).
In the same group, Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk returned with a victory for Gal from Germany at the expense of its German host, Leipzig, 4-1.
Quad for City
And Manchester City returned from the Spanish land of Seville with a remarkable 4-0 victory thanks to a double by its giant Norwegian international striker, Arling Haaland.
The City coach praised Haaland, saying, “He has a natural sense of scoring goals. He is always in the right place at the right time.”
Seville entered the match after losing 3-0 to Barcelona at the same stadium last weekend, but things were not better, because he suffered a tougher loss against his English opponent.
In general, Sevilla has had a bad season so far, having scored one point from four matches in La Liga.
On the other hand, Manchester City, who never won the title of this competition and finished runners-up in 2021, sent a strongly worded message to his other competitors that he is an actual candidate to crown it this season.
The giant Halland opened the scoring, investing a perfect ball from Belgian playmaker Kevin De Bruyne to follow it into the net.
City added the second goal after the pass of the Portuguese Joao Cancelo towards Foden, and the latter manipulated one of the defenders, right and left, before launching a ball that hugged the net (58).
Halland added the third goal, taking advantage of a rebound from Moroccan goalkeeper Yassine Bouno, fired by Foden (67).
Arling was playing his 20th match in the Champions League (with Austrian Salzburg and Germany’s Dortmund), and he scored his twenty-fifth goal in it.
Diach concluded the goals festival in overtime.
In the same group, the German Borussia Dortmund started his career in an ideal way by winning a wide victory over its Danish guest Copenhagen 3-0.
Dortmund took advantage of a quick counter-attack to open the scoring for its veteran captain Marco Reus with a left-footed ball in his team’s first shot on goal (35), raising his score to 22 goals in 57 matches he played in the Champions League.
Copenhagen had not risen from this stumble until Portuguese Rafael Guerrero added the second goal after exchanging the ball with the American Giovanni Reina (42).
Young Englishman Judd Bellingham sealed the score for the hosts seven minutes before the end of the match with a quick counter-attack.
Chelsea fall
Chelsea, the champion of the season before last, began his career with a resounding fall against its host, Dinamo Zagreb, of Croatia, 0-1.
Mislav Orsic scored the game’s only goal in the 13th minute, to boost his team’s unbeaten record at its “Maximir” stadium to 20 matches in various competitions.
Chelsea, who spent about 300 million euros in the last summer transfers, appeared at a disappointing level and the failure of its stars to break the defensive bloc of the owners of the land and create real opportunities to score.
Chelsea had the advantage from the beginning and searched for the opening of the scoring more than once, but his attempts did not pose a great danger to the goal of the owners of the land.
Dinamo Zagreb managed to open the scoring, contrary to the course of play from a counter-attack started by Austrian defender Robert Ljubicic from his team’s penalty area when he cut an attack for the London team, playing the long ball to Bruno Petkovic, who prepared it with his head to Mislav Orsic, who started from the middle of the field and penetrated into the area alone with goalkeeper Kepa before To play it with his right, with a wonderful touch on his left, which hugged the empty goal (13).
Gabonese striker Aubameyang scored a goal that was canceled due to offside left defender Ben Chilwell, who had the decisive pass (49).
And Tuchel paid the Italian Jorginho and the Albanian Armando Bruya in place of the Croatian Mateo Kovacic and Aubameyang (59), then played his last two cards, the Spanish defender Marc Cucurella and the American Christian Pulisic in place of Chilwell (71) and Rahim Sterling (75).
Nevertheless, the London club’s suffering continued without a threat to the goal, and the most prominent attempt was when he denied the left post, Reece James, to equalize by returning his powerful shot from inside the area (86), then goalkeeper Dominic Levakovic saved his goal from an investigator by blocking a “on the fly” shot from Walking distance to Mason Mount (87).
In the same group, the Italian Milan, the second most crowned team in the competition (7 times), escaped the trap of its Austrian host Salzburg and returned with a precious 1-1 draw.
Salzburg was the first to score by Swiss Noah Okafor (28), but Belgian international Alexis Salemaikers equalized in the 40th minute.