Match reports

The third round of this year Champions League featured some cracking matches. In group A. Napoli played Bayern Munich. Toni Kroos put Bayern in front after just 2 minutes but Napoli equalized through an own goal from Badstuber. After nearly 20 hours of football Bayern conceded a goal.

Bayern might have recorded a victory but Mario Gomez missed a penalty in the second half. In another great game Manchester city came from behind to claim all three points against Villarreal thanks to a Sergio Aguero injury-time winner. Bayern remain top of the group with 7 points.

In group B, Inter moved to first place after beating Lille 0-1 with a goal from Giampaolo Pazzini. The other group B game saw CSKA trash Trabzonspor 3-0 to move to second position at the expense of the Turkish side.

After a surprisingly shaky beginning to this year’s Champions league, Manchester United finally grabbed their first victory in group C. The Red devils beat Otelul Galati 2-0 thanks to a Wayne Rooney brace of penalties. Benfica kept first place in this group after edging of Basel 0-1 in Switzerland.

After the first three rounds, Real Madrid are the only team to achieve a 100% record, beating Lyon 4-0 at the Bernabeu. Lyon, who used to eliminate and defeat Real Madrid during the years, represented absolutely no threat in this game.
In the other game of group D, Ajax kept their dream alive for qualifying for the knockout stages after beating Dinamo in Zagreb, who are yet to score their first goal of the campaign.

Chelsea thrashed Genk 5-0 in group E game with Fernando Torres scoring his first brace for the blues. Chelsea and Leverkusen remain the main contestants to progress to the knockout stages because Bayer recorded an important 2-1 victory over their main rivals Valencia.

One of the derbies of the Champions league third round was played on Velodrome but it did not justify the meaning derby. Arsenal scraped a 0-1 victory, with Aaron Ramsey scoring in the 93rd minute. In the other game, Dortmund disappointed again by losing 3-1 to Olympiakos which saw Borussia cemented to the last place in group F.

Group G is the most equal group of all, but no one expected that APOEL was going to be the group leaders after three games played. Yet again they did not suffer a defeat, playing a 1-1 draw against Porto. The other game saw Shakhtar and Zenit playing an entertaining 2-2 draw.

In the last group H Milan and Barcelona are progressing as expected after both teams recorded comfortable 2-0 victories over BATE Borisov and Viktoria Plzen respectively.

The top goalscorer so far is surprisingly the CSKA striker Seydou Doumbia with 4 goals.

UEFA Champions league continued on 27th and 28th September with matches being played on Tuesday and Wednesday. Round two of Champions league saw almost all favorites winning their games with only Manchester United dropping two points again FC Basel.

Manchester United took the 2-0 lead at halftime but Basel managed to fight back with Alexander Frei scoring two goals. At the end Manchester United can even consider themselves lucky because they equalized in the 90th minute with an Ashley Young header. In the other group C match Benfica recorded a 0-1 win against Otelul Galati.

In a group 2 derby Bayern Munich beat Manchester City 2-0 with Mario Gomez scoring two goals. “The Citizens” really disappointed as they only managed to test Manuel Neuer on two occasion while Bayern’s wingers Ribery and Muller were a constant threat to Joe Hart, who despite City’s loss was their best player.

The game was also marked by a conflict between City manager Roberto Mancini and Carlos Tevez, who reportedly refused to go into the game.

Other game in group A saw Napoli beat Villareal 2-0. Real Madrid continued their domination in group D after they outclassed Ajax 3-0 at the Bernabeu. In other game, Lyon beat Dinamo Zagreb 2-0 to go second of the table.

Inter managed to beat CSKA in Russia 3-2 to win their first points of the campaign. New trainer Claudio Ranieri made a successful debut after Inter lost in its first game against Trabzonspor. In the other game of group B Lille and Trabzonspor shared spoils with a 1-1 draw which saw Trabzonspor remain as leaders of this group with 4 points.

On Wednesday in group E Valencia hosted Chelsea. Lampard brought Chelsea in front on 56th minute. Valencia equalized in the 86th minute after Soldado realized the penalty after Kalou’s handball. Both teams had numerous chances during the game but Petr Cech on one side and Diego Alves on another had their night.
 
Leverkusen got their first points of the season after a 2-0 win over Belgian side Genk. Barcelona and Milan recorded comfortable victories over minnows BATE Borisov and Victoria Plzen. Barcelona also set a new record, as their 5-0 victory over BATE is the biggest ever away win in the history of Champions league.

Arsenal beat Olympiacos 2-1 to record their first victory. Man of the Match was the 18-year old winger Oxlade Chamberlain who opened the scoreline on 8th minute before Santos doubled the lead on 20th minute. Marseille played one of their best games of the season as they dump Borussia Dortmund 3-0 to go top of the group F.

APOEL are the biggest surprise so far as they are the leaders of the group G. They caused an upset , holding last years quarter finalists Shaktar Donetsk to a 1-1 draw. In other match Zenit beat Porto 3-1 to record their first points of the season.
Next round is scheduled to be played on 18th and 19th of October.

The 20th Champions League season started on September 13 2011 with 16 matches played in the first round on Tuesday and Wednesday. The opening day gave us many surprise results with 2010 Champions Internazionale being the first victim.

Trabzonspor, team who had enter the competition following a UEFA ban to Fenerbahce due to a match-fixing scandal, took all three points at Giuseppe Meazza, causing a major upset in the first round. This was Trabzonspor’s first Champions League appearance and first victory in this competition.

Four other teams have also made a debut in this year’s Champions League. Manchester City, who are very ambitious this season, were held 1-1by Napoli at Eastlands. They managed to salvage a point thanks to an Alex Kolarov free-kick. Other debutants displays were pretty good with Victoria Plzen drawing and Otelul Galati losing narrowly to Basel.

Title defenders Barcelona conceded a late equalizer which helped AC Milan to salvage a point from their match at Camp Nou. In a superb game, Pato brought Milan in front after just 25 seconds (the fith fastest goal in the Champions League ever) and Pedro and Villa created a comeback. Thiago Silva header in the 92nd minute saved a point for the “Rossoneri”.

Real Madrid did not impress in the first leg after a narrow Champions League victory over Dinamo Zagreb. Los Blancos broke the deadlock on the 53rd minute after a series of wasted chances from Benzema, Ronaldo and Ozil. Dinamo keeper Ivan Kelava had a great night saving numerous chances produced by the trio.

We saw some amazing goals in the first round with the best one being the goal from Porto’s Hulk from a 35m free-kick. David Villa from Barcelona and Jovan Perišić from Dortmund also scored great goals for their teams.

The next Champions league round is scheduled to be played on September 27th and 28th with several games in eye of the public: Bayern take on Manchester City and Valencia face Chelsea.