Category: UEFA Champions League

When Chelsea host Barcelona, fans can assess two 18-year-olds who are equally tipped as future Ballon d’Or winners

Comparisons mean little to Estêvão Willian. The Brazil winger did not even take kindly to being nicknamed Messinho – “Little Messi” – earlier in his career. He called the nickname “disruptive” and made clear that he had no interest in trying to be someone else. “I don’t like comparisons,” the 18-year-old told ESPN Brasil last year. “For those who don’t know how to deal with it, it’s quite disruptive. Me being Estêvão is very good.”

Chelsea no doubt agree. After all, opposition defenders aside, who could possibly complain about Estêvão just being Estêvão? Not for nothing is he widely tipped to win the Ballon d’Or one day. The teenager’s talent is outrageous, his start to life in England has been better than expected and, although the obvious risk with heaping too much praise on a young prospect is that it makes them take their eye off the ball, it is telling that those who know Estêvão say one of the qualities that set him apart is his character.

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Tottenham manager can afford a midweek defeat in Paris, but the same does not apply to Fulham’s visit on Saturday

Welcome, then, to another of those Spurs weeks, where the executives are deeply concerned and it is impossible to ignore the sense of foreboding. The 4-1 derby humiliation at Arsenal on Sunday ensured the club are playing a game of crisis-baton hot potato with Liverpool and surely the last thing that the manager, Thomas Frank, needs is a Champions League trip to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night.

This is not the real fear because it is just about possible to paint the game against the European champions as a free hit. Even in the best of times, nobody would have expected much from Tottenham there and, with two wins and two draws from four matches in the competition, they can afford to lose this one.

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• Europa League prices last season praised as ‘sensible’

• Trust asks Tottenham to make ticketing fair

The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust (THST) has said “unaffordable” ticket prices are behind the declining atmosphere at the club’s stadium.

Spurs have won three of 20 home Premier League games in 2025 in their 62,850-seat ground. Although the venue came alive during last season’s successful Europa League campaign, the club’s return to the Champions League has resulted in crowds of 54,755 and 49,565 for home fixtures against Villarreal and Copenhagen.

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This week’s action saw Vincent Kompany’s men roll on, surprise results and a brilliant performance from a Liverpool defender

• Vincent Kompany’s Bayern Munich. They rule supreme in Germany and are on a 16-match winning streak. Beating the defending champions, Paris Saint-Germain, on Tuesday was further proof of Bayern’s credentials. Luís Diaz, whose combativeness is sorely missed by Liverpool, scored two, but he took the aggression too far when his challenge on Achraf Hakimi led to a first-half red card. That meant the second half became a test of defensive credentials that Bayern passed. “I also want us to enjoy it when we have to defend,” said Kompany. He was by no means his club’s first-choice as coach in the summer of 2024 – relegation from the Premier League with Burnley had damaged his reputation. But in Bavaria, the noise from the boardroom has been quelled – for now – by the brilliance of his team’s play.

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• Inter maintain perfect start with win over Kairat Almaty

• Pafos beat Villarreal to earn first Champions League win

Barcelona had to settle for a share of the spoils at Club Brugge after a thrilling 3-3 draw but were fortunate the English referee Anthony Taylor ruled out Romeo Vermant’s stoppage-time effort for a foul on the Barça goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.

In a thriller at Brugge’s Jan Breydel Stadium, the home side opened the scoring through Nicolò Tresoldi in the sixth minute. But Barcelona hit back with Ferran Torres scoring from close range two minutes later only for Brugge to regainthe lead in the 17th minute through Carlos Forbs after another quick counter.

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• Foden scores twice in 4-1 win over Borussia Dortmund

• ‘No one in the world doesn’t know about his quality’

Pep Guardiola said that “no one in the world” does not appreciate Phil Foden’s quality and urged Manchester City’s playmaker to push himself to be recalled by Thomas Tuchel for England after he scored twice in the 4-1 home Champions League win over Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday.

Foden’s sumptuous strikes, on 22 and 57 minutes, were complemented by a rasping first-half finish from Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki’s late goal. Waldemar Anton netted a consolation for the visitors as City moved into fourth in the 36-team league phase table with to 10 points from four matches.

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Manchester City and Newcastle United eased their opponents aside, while Brugge and Barcelona shared six goals in a wild affair in Belgium

Teams are emerging from tunnels all across Europe. Zadok the Priest (Version) blaring out hither and yon. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes!

Going into the 8pm kick-offs, here’s how the league phase currently looks. When it’s all completed after eight games, the top eight will go through to the round of 16, positions nine to 16 will be seeded in the knockout stage and be drawn against positions 17 to 24, and everyone below will go home. So that’s a pretty big defeat for Villarreal in Cyprus tonight … and Chelsea now have a job on if they want to grab one of those top-eight spots, because they host Barcelona next, and still have to travel to Atalanta and Napoli.

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If Phil Foden performs so, too, do Manchester City. This was reiterated by his two-goal show that helped to sweep Pep Guardiola’s improving team to 10 points from four games at the league stage’s halfway juncture.

Factor in Erling Haaland, who decorated his captaincy for the night with a 27th goal (for club and country), and Waldemar Anton’s 72nd-minute jab home was solely an irritation.

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Alejandro Garnacho scored off the bench as Chelsea escaped from Azerbaijan with a point after being given a scare

1 min: No Caicedo or Enzo in midfield for Chelsea, and that’s going to be a test of Romeo Lavia and Andrey Santos. The young visitors get booed on every touch. Boos are very much in fashion in football, as Trent Alexander-Arnold will tell you.

Here we go in Baku, the teams are out, the jewel of the Land of Fire take on west London’s finest. The weather looks much the same as London today, though the pitch looks decidedly soggy.

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• Incident with manager after Chelsea loss ‘nothing big’

• He felt ‘I need to score’ after storming Copenhagen run

Micky van de Ven has downplayed the furore over his standoff with Thomas Frank after Tottenham’s Premier League defeat by Chelsea on Saturday, insisting it was misinterpreted and blown out of proportion. The centre-half preferred to focus on how the team had bounced back to thrash FC Copenhagen in the Champions League on Tuesday – a game in which he scored a thrilling individual goal.

Van de Ven was all smiles after the Copenhagen victory, his surge and finish from one box to the other drawing comparisons to Son Heung-min’s Puskas Award-winning effort for Spurs against Burnley in 2019. It was a vivid contrast to the post-Chelsea scenes when Spurs were booed off by their home crowd, having also been jeered by them during the game.

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• Díaz shown straight red for scissor challenge in 2-1 win

• Juventus held by Sporting, Atlético see off Union SG

Bayern Munich made it 16 wins from 16 games this season to underline their credentials as early Champions League favourites, beating the holders, Paris Saint-Germain, 2-1 away as Luis Díaz scored two goals and was shown a red card.

The Colombia winger struck twice before being sent off for a violent tackle on Achraf Hakimi on the stroke of half-time.

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Micky van den Ven scored an amazing solo goal for Spurs, while Luis Diaz hit two and was sent off for Bayern in Paris

Thomas Frank has called for better support from the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium crowd after revealing that Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence had apologised to him for their reaction to the 1-0 home defeat against Chelsea on Saturday.

Van de Ven and Spence were incensed when the full-time whistle sounded and the Spurs fans booed, as they had done at half-time with their team trailing to João Pedro’s 34th‑minute goal. The defenders stormed past Frank towards the tunnel, ignoring their manager’s attempts to get them to acknowledge the supporters in the South Stand – a bad look at the end of another bad Premier League day at the stadium.

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Alexis Mac Allister’s second-half header secured Liverpool a deserved victory, as Trent Alexander-Arnold copped some expected flak on his return

1 min: Liverpool are playing towards the Kop in this first half. They prefer it the other way round; Xabi Alonso has clearly given his captain Federico Valverde the heads-up on that.

Liverpool get the ball rolling. The Anfield faithful chant the name of Andy Robertson in the pointed style. His old full-back friend looking on from the benches.

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• Defender may face hostile reception from Anfield crowd

• Slot says he has ‘great memories’ of Real Madrid full-back

Xabi Alonso has told Trent Alexander-Arnold to enjoy his “nice” return to Liverpool as the Real Madrid defender prepares to face his boyhood club for the first time since his acrimonious summer departure.

Alexander-Arnold is likely to receive a hostile reception at Anfield after he angered Liverpool fans by leaving at the end of his contract last season. The England international would have exited on a free transfer but for Real paying an £8.5m fee to cancel his Liverpool contract early and include him in their squad for the Club World Cup.

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• Liverpool manager says playmaker will justify £116m fee

• Xabi Alonso backs ‘really special player’ to come good

Arne Slot has defended Florian Wirtz before Real Madrid’s visit in the Champions League and insisted the £116m signing has produced “exactly what we expected” at this stage of his Liverpool career.

The playmaker was on the bench for the win against Aston Villa on Saturday and also omitted from Slot’s starting lineup against Manchester United, Chelsea and Everton having struggled to make an impact in the Premier League. Wirtz has started all three of Liverpool’s Champions League games, however, and could well return for the visit of Xabi Alonso’s side on Tuesday.

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