Category: UEFA Champions League

• Midfielder scores for first time since heart surgery

• Ten-man Atlético hang on for draw against Stuttgart

Scott McTominay scored his first two goals of the season to help Napoli beat Bodø/Glimt 4-3 and relieve pressure on the coach, Massimiliano Allegri. McTominay, who also hit the post, missed a month of the season after undergoing a surgical procedure in early September to treat an irregular heartbeat.

Matteo Politano’s first-minute opener was cancelled out by Bodø’s Jens Petter Hauge. McTominay restored Napoli’s lead before the break only for Andreas Helmersen to again level for the Norwegian club.

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Liverpool fell 2-0 down but battled back to win thanks to Alexis Mac Allister’s double

Villarreal kick off. They’re kicking towards the Kop in this first half.

Both sets of fans give their all to this evening’s pre-match dip into the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook. Nunca caminarás solo! After which the teams take to the field of play. Liverpool in red, Villarreal in yellow, everyone looking real crisp and clean. A fine atmosphere on a rainy night on Merseyside. The close pals Andoni Iraola and Iñigo Pérez embrace before facing off. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes.

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Paris Saint-Germain continued their 100% record in this season’s Champions League, with Barcelona their latest victims, while Manchester City romped to another win

Peeeeeeeeep! The games have begun! Except for the one in Paris, which is running late.

These are the final moments of pre-match precursive preambulation, with kick-off moments away. “Now, I’m just reading what you’ve written and I don’t know what it looks like, but this might be the week to avoid excessive displays of fire in the French capital, don’t you think?” writes Jason Geer. Rest assured, t looked like the very opposite of chaos.

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Refused a work permit at Bournemouth, Pérez comes face to face with Liverpool’s head coach in Champions League

On Iñigo Pérez’s first day as a head coach he took a call from Andoni Iraola, just as he had every day for months. They had known each other for 22 years, lived in the same residency, come through the same academy and played in the same team; they had worked side by side, manager and assistant, and embarked on an adventure together. Now, though, Pérez was having to go it alone. At 36, he had become what his friend thought he would be from the moment they met, just not so soon. “He wished me luck and said he was there for me,” Pérez said, “said that if I ever needed anything …”

Well, maybe not anything.

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It will be a tense time for Europe’s longest serving president, despite the Champions League game at Anfield offering a symbol of how far they have come

The first time Fernando Roig watched Villarreal play as their president, he sat in the stand at a tiny whitewashed ground that had concrete fever and was half empty. It was a Sunday night in the second division, they lost 3-0 against Badajoz, and he didn’t enjoy it much.

But then, he never enjoys it much. Even on Tuesday at Anfield, he will not: into his 30th year, the longest presidency in Europe, that is about the only thing that hasn’t changed. More than 1,000 games and still it happens. “I don’t get nervous,” he says. “It’s worse: I get worried, very anxious. I suffer a lot.

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The competition returned after the international break as the reigning champions put on a devastating display and Italy looked for its next saviour

Famous faces in the crowd for English teams’ home matches on Wednesday. While Prince William delighted in his beloved Aston Villa’s 6-0 romp over Fenerbahce, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City homecoming was spoiled by Paris Saint-Germain showing they still represent the benchmark in European club football this season.

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• Mourinho’s side score three late goals from 3-1 deficit

• Dortmund latest team beaten in Norway by Bodø/Glimt

José Mourinho enjoyed a Roma reunion to remember as Real Madrid completed an astonishing comeback by scoring three late goals to claim a 4-3 away win in the Champions League on Wednesday.

Marten de Roon gave the hosts a deserved opener before Kylian Mbappé struck back on his 100th Champions League appearance to level the scores at the break. Two Donyell Malen strikes in the space of six minutes early in the second half seemed to take the game away from the 15-time European champions as Roma ran rampant.

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PSG led 3-0 at the break after a breathtaking first half and held on despite an improved City display

2 min: Cherki is caught dozing by Dembélé, who sends Doué scampering down a cul-de-sac on the left. Cherki will be pleased Khusanov was on point there.

PSG, in their blue shirts with red central panel, launch the kick-off in their usual rugby-union style. City in their sky blue.

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A first-minute goal made United’s task difficult and it got harder when Leny Yoro was red-carded in the second half

Diego Simeone made mention of Julian Alvarez in his pre-match duties: “Well, he’s happy because I’ve been able to speak to him a lot and I’ve really focussed on Julian Alvarez as the person, not just the player and I think we’ve reached reached a very good point with him.“

Michael Carrick speaks to the Amazon UK broadcast: “It’s where we want to be. Got a really good history of this competition and that’s where we want to challenge ourselves and test ourselves. you know, we’ve worked hard to be here. We want a reaction You know, we haven’t had the results that we wanted, that we expected. Fine margins in some of them games and it can go both ways, but the reality is exactly where we are now and this is a fresh opportunity.

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Arsenal toiled for an hour before tearing Lille apart three times in eight second-half minutes

1 min: Peeeeeep!

Right then. Hands shaken, coin tossed, pennants exchanged, huddles broken. It’s time.

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• Manager claims City fans suffering more than players

• Captain Rúben Dias: ‘We’re calm. We trust the club’

Enzo Maresca has admitted he would describe Manchester City as “cheats” if he were a Manchester United or Arsenal fan. The manager’s comments came as he suggested it had been harder for City’s supporters to deal with the scandal surrounding the club than it had been for him or the players.

Maresca guided City to an impressive 3-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday in their first game since the club ere found guilty of more than 100 charges related to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules. He was asked whether the performance was down to the team being brought closer together by the guilty verdict.

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The league phase has begun. From Olise’s brilliance to Sabah’s pub cleaner turned quiz contestant turned manager, there was plenty to talk about

The league phase has been previewed as Barcelona’s first step toward reclaiming a crown last lifted in 2015, with disappointments aplenty since. Lionel Messi claiming just one Champions League title in the last decade of his time at Camp Nou is the starkest statistic. The player anointed as Messi’s successor, Lamine Yamal, is already a European and world champion for Spain, so this is the next frontier. A soggy Wednesday evening at Camp Nou saw Hansi Flick’s team show their attacking chops remain of the highest quality in a 5-1 defeat of Feyenoord. The club presidential regime of Joan Laporta continues to pull levers to confound financial experts, with Gabriel Jesus, one of the summer’s arrivals, scoring his first Barca goal. Yamal got on the scoresheet via a scruffy free-kick after Raphinha had reminded there are further dimensions to that all-star attack, his first goal of his pair two sending Feyenoord defenders skidding.

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Forward’s spurned opportunity to level the match proved decisive in the Champions League newcomers’ loss to Manchester United

Football – like much of life – can be a story of what might have been, and on 39 minutes Joy-Lance Mickels had an experience that was a sliding doors moment for the centre-forward and Sabah that may haunt a long time.

Azerbaijan’s champions were trailing to Matheus Cunha’s opener when Kaheem Parris spiralled the ball up to the far post of Manchester United’s goal. The lurking Mickels had a gilded chance, unmarked and close-in, yet when the delivery dropped, the 32-year-old snatched at his header and the ball fell wide.

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• Ismail Kartal tells reporters he will leave ‘never to return’

• Club president: ‘I am his senior, I told him to continue’

The Fenerbahce head coach, Ismail Kartal, announced his resignation on Thursday after ⁠his team drew 1-1 at home to Roma in the Champions League – but minutes ⁠later, the club ⁠president ​said Kartal would stay in the job.

Kartal shocked the post-match press conference by claiming he was ⁠leaving Fenerbahce “never to return”. The 65-year-old added that he was taking the drastic decision “to clear the way for the club” – but the Fenerbahce president, Aziz Yildrim, quickly moved to play down his manager’s remarks.

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• Bayern Munich 5-0 Bodø/Glimt, Como 4-1 Leipzig

• Lens win 3-2 at Slavia Prague with last-gasp double

Bayern Munich opened their Champions League campaign with a 5-0 thrashing of Norway’s Bodo/Glimt.

The six-times winners were frustrated before half-time by Bodo/Glimt but cruised once Jamal Musiala smashed in the opener two minutes into the second period and the floodgates opened.

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