Category: UEFA Champions League

Erik ten Hag’s team may have found a young striker who can rouse them from their miserable start to the season

It is a measure of where Manchester United are in this toxic early season, an early season where things just keep on happening, and where those things are divided into three distinct types, bad things, very bad things and really terrible things, that by the end a 4-3 defeat in Munich really didn’t seem like much of a disappointment.

At times it almost felt like the green shoots of something. Or at least it did when Rasmus Højlund was scoring his first goal for the club; or in the early moments when United pressed well; and then towards the end when they refused to die and kept on coming in relentless zombie waves.

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Arsenal were far too good for PSV as they made a stylish return to the Champions League

“I worked for the university athletic department when I was in school,” says Jeff Necessary, “and with 14 sports at our school at that time, it was not uncommon for me to have to attend two events in one day, particularly in the spring. Baseball game in the afternoon, basketball at night, things like that.”

A fine job.

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Harry Kane scored from the spot as Bayern Munich saw off their visitors in a match that boasted three goals in a chaotic final seven minutes

• Read David Hytner’s match report from the Allianz Arena

Manchester United: Erik ten Hag makes just one change to the lin-up that started against Brighton on Saturday, dropping Scott McTominay to the bench and bringing in Facundo Pellistri, who starts for just the second time in a Manchester United shirt. Signed from Penarol in Uruguay in 2020, the 21-year-old has made 13 appearances for United but spent last season on loan at Spanish club Alaves.

Bayern Munich: Harry Kane starts up front for Bayern Munich, while Joshua Kimmich has been passed fit to play in midfield. Thomas Tuchel, who is suspended for tonight’s game after being banished from the touchline in last season’s quarter-final against Manchester City, makes just change to the side that started Friday’s match against Bayer Leverkusen. Jamal Musiala comes in for Thomas Muller, who has to make do with a place on the bench.

Referee: Glenn Nyberg

Assistants: Mahbod Beigi and Andreas Söderqvist

Fourth official: Adam Ladeback

Video Assistant Referee: Pol van Boekel

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• Champions League roundup: Union Berlin undone by Real
• Late own goal hands Napoli win in Braga; Galatasaray draw

Jude Bellingham scored deep in added time as Real Madrid wore down a resilient Union Berlin to claim a 1-0 win at the Santiago Bernabéu in their Group C opener, spoiling the Bundesliga side’s Champions League debut.

Real dominated possession in the first half but found it difficult to break down Union, who defended resolutely and were impressively marshalled at the back by veteran Italy defender Leonardo Bonucci – a summer signing from Juventus.

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• Provedel scores 95th-minute equaliser to rescue 1-1 draw
• Barcelona ease past Royal Antwerp with Félix on target twice

The Lazio goalkeeper Ivan Provedel scored an equaliser deep in injury time as his side claimed a dramatic 1-1 draw with Atlético Madrid at the Stadio Olimpico.

Lazio looked to be heading for a narrow defeat in their opening Champions League Group E clash after Pablo Barrios fired the visitors into a 29th-minute lead.

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• Gustaf Lagerbielke and Odin Thiago Holm see red
• Calvin Stengs and Alireza Jahanbakhsh score for home side

Celtic had Gustaf Lagerbielke and Odin Thiago Holm sent off within five minutes of each other as they opened their Champions League Group E campaign with a 2-0 defeat by Feyenoord in Rotterdam.

Calvin Stengs gave Feyenoord the lead in first-half stoppage time when his 30-yard free-kick evaded a poor attempt at a defensive wall.

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• Gunners’ first time in competition since 2016-17 season
• Arsenal won and lost to PSV in Europa League last season

Mikel Arteta has spoken of his pride at leading Arsenal into their first Champions League campaign since 2016. Their meeting with PSV Eindhoven at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday marks a return from the wilderness and is a visible waymarker of the progress they have made since Arteta took over almost four years ago.

Although Arteta must reshuffle his attack after Gabriel Martinelli sustained a hamstring victory in the 1-0 win at Everton on Sunday there was an evident buoyancy around Arsenal’s training facility. They face last season’s Eredivisie runners-up, who are managed by the former Ajax and Borussia Dortmund coach Peter Bosz, and Arteta was happy to dwell on the momentousness of the occasion.

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Who can stop Manchester City retaining the Champions League? This is a question many will ponder and for which Red Star Belgrade had no answer. By the end of this opening group game that is. Because, 45 minutes in, Serbia’s champions of the past six years led and threatened to do what Lyon were the last to do five years ago to the day: defeat Pep Guardiola’s side, in Europe, at their home.

Yet City are the masters of refusing to be beaten and so cue two Julián Álvarez strikes minutes into the second half which overturned Red Star’s advantage, broke them, and had Guardiola’s men coasting before Rodri applied the coup de grace.

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Newcastle earned a precious point in this season’s group of death, while Rafael Leão made an early bid for slapstick miss of the season

3 min: Loftus-Cheek probes down the right and wins a throw deep in Newcastle territory. Baby steps for Milan after that 5-1 humiliation at the hands of Inter.

2 min: Milan spend the opening moments stroking it around the back in the our-house-our-rules style.

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The holders came from behind to win, Celtic endured a grim night in Rotterdam and Lazio keeper Ivan Provedel scored a late equaliser

GOAL! Young Boys 1-2 Leipzig (X Schlager 74)

Xaver Schlager has put Leipzig, who will expect to finish second in Group G, ahead in Switzerland. Red Star and Manchester City are the other teams in taht group.

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• Champions start defence on Tuesday against Red Star Belgrade
• ‘If I wanted to live for the memories I wouldn’t be here’

Pep Guardiola is proud of Manchester City’s Champions League triumph last season but stated it is “nothing special” compared with winning the trophy on multiple occasions, and so he has urged his team to win back‑to‑back titles.

City secured European football’s biggest prize for the first time with victory against Internazionale in Istanbul in May. They begin their defence with the visit of Red Star Belgrade on Tuesday and Guardiola wants his players to focus on emulating Real Madrid, who in 2017 and 2018 became the only team to retain the European Cup since Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan in 1990, in the pre‑Champions League era.

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Of course governments do things that football clubs shouldn’t – but that’s precisely why sport matters

It’s a strange world that makes you yearn for the days of Ted Croker, Bert Millichip and Gordon McKeag. Football seemed so simple then. And to think that they once seemed absurd in their pomposity, with their velvet bag in the wood-panelled Football Association committee room at Lancaster Gate. The draw for the Champions League group stage, though, was something else, a festival of glitzy vapidity in which we had to be told over and over again how exciting it was that we were about to learn which pot-four side would be getting hammered by Manchester City.

And through the veneer of Euroschmaltz came the distinct sense of how broken is the competition. City’s triumph in Istanbul last season should have felt like the culmination of a great quest, but it was hard to conjure much sense of jeopardy when Internazionale were led by a 37-year-old forward City had binned off eight years earlier. It’s a paradox of excellence that hammering sides, as City did to RB Leipzig, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, tends to diminish the sense of achievement.

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• Nasser al-Khelaifi ‘does not see’ Pro League sides in competition
• European clubs not threatened by Saudi spending, adds Khelaifi

The European Club Association chairman, Nasser al-Khelaifi, has poured cold water on the notion that Saudi Arabian sides are on course to be granted spots in the revamped Champions League.

The rapid growth and formidable spending power of the Saudi Pro League have brought suggestions that a place for its champions will be sought in Europe’s leading competition, which will expand next season to a new “Swiss system” of 36 clubs. Executives from its leading sides are reportedly keen to test the proposition but the influential Khelaifi, who is also the president of Paris St-Germain, emphasised no such move is on the horizon. Khelaifi did, however, leave the door open for stand-alone showpieces, with the Uefa Super Cup an obvious candidate, to take place in the gulf state.

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