Tuesday’s game day of the Champions League started with a surprise. The Ukrainian champion Shakhtar Donetsk, which is currently playing its international matches in Hamburg, defeated Barcelona, which is at the top of the group after three rounds. The winning goal was attributed to Sikan, who ended a counterattack with a beautiful header. The Catalans had more of the ball, but they were weak, hitting the goal only once in the entire match.
Sahtar was already stateless in the previous BL competition, when it played in Warsaw, at Legia’s stadium. Since the Donetsk stadium was hit nine years ago, they have not been able to use the otherwise ultra-modern facility since then.
Despite the war, the Ukrainian championship is taking place, and the team, which lives and trains in Poland, plays its domestic championships behind closed doors. The club sold its best players – Mudrik, for example, moved to Chelsea for 70 million euros in January – but this has kept it competitive even at the European level. This was their second success for the Donetsk team in the Champions League, previously they beat Belgium’s Antwerp 3-2 away from home, with a two-goal deficit after the first 45 minutes.
In the other match, which kicks off at 18:45, Dortmund beat Newcastle 2-0 to go top of their group. Moreover, it was not only temporary, as the French Paris Saint-Germain lost away to Milan 2-1, thus leaving the group completely open with two rounds to go. Dortmund leads with 7 points, PSG has 6, Milan 5 and Newcastle 4.
The matchday’s biggest victory, a 6-0 thrashing, was achieved by Atlético Madrid, which stuffed Scotland’s Celtic. In no small part due to the fact that they played a lot with the man advantage after Maeda Daizen’s 20-minute exhibition. At that time, Atlético was leading 1-0, and the end was very smooth. In the other match of the group, Lazio beat Feyenoord 1-0 – here Celtic essentially lost their way to the next round, and they didn’t have much of a chance to continue in the Europa League, standing with 1 point. There will be a big battle at the top, Atlético with 8, Lazio with 7, and Feyenoord with 6 points.
Manchester City, which is still faultless, also won a relatively big victory in the BL, they won 3-0 against Young Boys on Tuesday. By the end, Pep Guardiola’s team had a man advantage, but by the time Sandro Lauper received his second yellow card in the 53rd minute, Manchester City had already made it 3-0, partly thanks to Erling Haaland’s double. Manchester City are now at 250 goals in the Champions League, they are the 12th team to achieve this number, but the least of all, They only needed 119 matches for this. In the other match of the group, RB Leipzig beat Crvena zvezda 2-1 away from home, and with this both teams definitely advanced to the knockout stage, the first from this year’s BL field.
In the surprise Sahtar group, Porto won 2-0 against Royal Antwerp, the second goal was scored by defender Pepe in the 91st minute, and at the age of 40 years and 256 days, he became the oldest goalscorer in the history of the BL. In this group, Barcelona and Porto have 9 points each, Sahtar 6 and Royal Antwerp 0.
Pepe, the 40-year-old CL goalscorer – Photo: Pedro Nunes / Reuters
Results, Champions League, Round 4, Tuesday match day
Atlético Madrid–Celtic 6-0 (2-0)Lazio–Feyenoord 1-0 (1-0)Dortmund–Newcastle 2-0 (1-0)AC Milan–Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 (1-1)Manchester City–Young Boys 3-0 (2-0)Crvena zvezda–RB Leipzig 1-2 (0-1)Sakhtar Donetsk–Barcelona 1-0 (1-0)Porto–Royal Antwerp 2-0 (1-0)
2023-11-07 22:26:42
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