Eight games in a just over four hours leave us with a lot of catching up to do before we can really sink our teeth into Tuesday’s Champions League results, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give some immediate thoughts on a day that saw England’s giants win on the road, Barcelona be Barcelona, Bayern fall flat, and Juventus played to a standstill in Turin.
Group E
Juventus 1-1 Shakhtar Donestk – More on this match to come, but the game of the day played out that way, and in three acts. (1) Shaktar dominated early, eventually producing the first goal. (2) Juventus responded quickly and appeared to be making this into a typical Juve match before (3) an open and intense final 30 minutes left the teams drawn at one. Shakhtar showed they’re capable of playing with one of Europe’s elite, while Juventus drops points at home, giving Group E’s pole position back to Chelsea.
Nordsjaelland 0-4 Chelsea – Goals piled on late make the final score deceptive, though there was little doubt Chelsea would win this one. They were clearly better from the opening whistle, even if it took a while for Juan Mata to break through. The Spaniard would add a second after halftime as the Blues cruised back to the top of their group. Given how other giants performed away from home on Tuesday, this is a very convincing result (that will talk more about this evening).
Group F
BATE Borisov 3-1 Bayern Munich – An incredible result for the Belarussians, producing a legendary victory in the history of their club. In the preview for this game, we not only alluded to Bayern as the world’s best at-the-moment team but also declined to go into BATE’s chances, claiming “you’re smart enough to know Bayern are heavy favorites to win this match.” Give BATE credit. They pulled the upset that wasn’t even worth considering, a far more difficult task than proving PST wrong.
Valencia 2-0 Lille – Lille has now gone winless in seven and look destined for last place in this group. Thanks to two goals from Jonas, Valencia gets their first points of the competition, setting up a home-and-home with BATE (now on six points) that could determine who’s going to the knockout round and who’s going to Europa. For Lille, Mathieu Debuchy picked up a second yellow late, putting him out for matchday three’s game against Bayern.
Group G
Sporting Lisbon 0-2 Barcelona – Exactly what you’d expect from Barcelona, though surprisingly, Lionel Messi didn’t score. Barça’s goals came from Alexis and Cesc Fábregas (both assisted by Messi, of course). A straight red for Sergio Busquets in the 88th minute means the Barça holder may miss multiple matches, a big loss with Thiago Alcantera having suffered a knee injury this weekend. For Sporting, they’re scoreless through two and need to get their post-Whitsel/Garcia life figured out before their matches with Spartak.
Spartak Moscow 2-3 Celtic – What happened to Spartak? Two weeks ago, they were almost knocking off Barcelona in Catalonia. Now they’re loosing at home to Celtic? When you give up an early goal then see a man (Juan Insurralde) red carded right when you’ve taken control of the match, you set yourself up for this kind of upset. All credit to Celtic, who came out and both started and finished strong. They sit second in the group with four points.
Group H
CFR Cluj 1-2 Manchester United – This was very typical United, giving life to a team they should have played off the field. Cluj came out strong and scored first, but two goals from Robin van Persie keeps the Red Devils perfect through two rounds. Will follow up on them later, but Cluj deserves from credit. They provided their win at Braga was no fluke. They only kept 35 percent of the possession, but late in the match, they had their chances to equalize. Right now, the look like they second-best team in this group.
Galatasaray 0-2 Sporting Braga – This result was coming, with Braga having recovered from their matchday one loss to Cluj. But when you see the scoreline, it’s still a bit surprising. Certainly Gala could use their home field advantage to carry them past a team like Braga? Apparently not. The Turkish champions conceded early and late and are now the only team in Group H without a win.
Those are our snap judgements. What are yours?