Champions League review: A deluge of goals as youth rules for Barcelona and Bayern | Champions League

The large winners

Barcelona’s youth system. Forward of Sunday’s version of El Clásico between Barcelona and Actual Madrid, the 2 golf equipment received their midweek matches. Actual Madrid’s opponents have been Juventus, in the kind of heavyweight conflict the Champions League’s rejig right into a 36-team group stage was purported to throw up regularly. Wednesday’s assembly fell wanting basic encounters like 2003’s assembly of Madrid’s Luís Figo and Zinedine Zidane with Juve’s Pavel Nedvěd and Alessandro Del Piero. In 2025, Juventus aren’t the power of yore, although they made Madrid sweat. The only real purpose got here from Jude Bellingham, England’s nice enigma.

Barcelona in the meantime, proceed to point out the depth of their La Masia youth academy. Fermín López, 22, scored a hat-trick, whereas 17-year-old attacking midfielder Pedro “Dro” Fernández equipped an help on his Champions League debut in a 6-1 drubbing of Olympiakos. Final weekend, Toni Fernández, six months youthful than Pedro, began in opposition to Girona in La Liga. Every might play some half in Sunday’s huge match, with Madrid two factors forward of their everlasting rivals.

Bayern Munich. One other European big is having fun with a flowering of youth. On Tuesday, Bayern’s coach, Vincent Kompany signed a three-year extension after his aspect’s faultless begin to the Bundesliga marketing campaign. The membership hierarchy approves of Kompany’s blooding of gamers like Lennart Karl and Knowledge Mike, two extra 17-year-olds. Karl, whose muscular 5ft 6in body recollects Nineteen Nineties German nice Thomas Hässler, accomplished a solo effort with a advantageous end to grow to be his membership’s youngest ever Champions League scorer in a 4-0 thrashing of Membership Brugge.

“He merely has balls,” stated teammate and midfielder Aleksandar Pavlović, who, at 21, is one other teenager Kompany is trusting. In the meantime, Harry Kane continued an unbelievable scoring run, and has now notched 20 objectives in 12 video games throughout all competitions this season. He has solely failed to attain in a type of video games, and in that one he registered two assists. In the meantime, Luis Díaz, the summer time’s huge signing, scored his first Champions League purpose for Bayern. Díaz is making his finest ever begin to a season with seven objectives and 4 assists from 12 matches.

Premier League power. This week noticed a deluge of objectives – 71 over two nights, 43 on Tuesday. This makes for an incredible highlights package deal, however questions of aggressive stability could also be raised. 5 Premier League golf equipment loved comfy wins, together with Liverpool ending their dropping run by successful 5-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt. Newcastle beating Benfica 3-0 and Chelsea’s 5-1 win over Ajax have been punishing defeats for 2 basic golf equipment from the European Cup period. Arsenal’s 4-0 defeat of Atlético Madrid was maybe most hanging. Mikel Arteta’s group have been too highly effective for Diego Simeone’s to resist. The breakthrough, a Gabriel header, was their tenth set-piece purpose this season.

As Manchester Metropolis received 2-0 at Villarreal, Erling Haaland prolonged his scoring run to 12 matches, closing in on Robert Lewandowski’s run of 15 in 2021 – the perfect such mark this century. Letting the English aspect down was Tottenham’s 0-0 draw at Monaco, who took 21 photographs on Guglielmo Vicario’s purpose. A face within the crowd on Wednesday was Paul Pogba, but to start his comeback at Monaco from his medicine ban after one other setback in coaching.

Participant of the week

Dennis Man, PSV Eindhoven. The week’s most hanging end result was PSV’s 6-2 defeat of Napoli, with US striker Ricardo Pepi scoring in its place. It was Man, a Romanian winger, on the centre of issues. He had two objectives and a collection of dribbles into the guts of the Italian champions’ defence. Man’s second purpose, his group’s fourth, was the spotlight, drilled together with his left foot. The primary was a fragile end.

“As I’ve stated many instances earlier than, you shouldn’t write gamers off after a number of weeks,” stated the PSV coach Peter Bosz of a participant criticised since signing from Parma.

They stated it

“The largest exception for me in the present day in comparison with the opposite video games we’ve performed was the enjoying type of our opponent. We obtained some vitality out of the moments we may press them, which within the final 4 or 5 video games we performed we weren’t in a position to press the opponent as a result of the ball wasn’t on the bottom, it was within the air.”

– Liverpool supervisor Arne Slot feedback on the win in Frankfurt, and inadvertently points Brentford supervisor Keith Andrews his tactical plan for the group’s sport on Saturday. (And possibly everybody after that, too.)

The pundit’s chair

“I stay satisfied that if the Paris Saint-Germain gamers handle to take care of this pleasure of enjoying collectively, they may at all times handle to carry out effectively. It seems like they nonetheless have room for enchancment.”

– France 1998 World Cup winner Emmanuel Petit, talking on RMC after the defending champions received 7-2 at Bayer Leverkusen.

Trying forward

The fourth week throws up an actual heavyweight conflict as PSG face Bayern. The Parisians aren’t having it their means in Ligue 1, the place Roberto De Zerbi’s Marseille are leaders; Marseille’s loss to Sporting Membership on Wednesday had the Italian fuming. Bayern, after latest turbulence, are again dominating the Bundesliga. This one would possibly effectively be a dry run for a better stakes assembly within the latter phases.

Actual Madrid v Liverpool suits the same invoice – Xabi Alonso dealing with Slot, with the Basque Actual Madrid boss having been many individuals’s choose to succeed Jürgen Klopp. Within the Champions League period, Madrid have overwhelmed Liverpool in two finals, although a 2-0 Liverpool win final November at Anfield within the group stage loosened Carlo Ancelotti’s tenure, an evening when Kylian Mbappé and Mohamed Salah each missed penalties.

Within the early Nineteen Nineties Sir John Corridor, the Newcastle chair, revealed a dream for his membership to grow to be a “group filled with Geordies”, modeled on Athletic Membership’s Basque-only recruitment coverage. That by no means got here to cross, particularly not in the present day. Eddie Howe’s squad is a league of countries, with solely Dan Burn, teenage midfielder Lewis Miley and reserve keeper Mark Gillespie becoming Corridor’s invoice. The golf equipment meet at St James’ after heartening wins this week. Wednesday noticed Athletic land their first win with a 3-1 comeback in opposition to Qarabağ.