Doug McIntyre
Soccer Journalist
Barcelona and Manchester City notched lopsided victories as the first round of this season’s UEFA Champions League continued on Wednesday with nine matches to close out Matchday 3.
Raphinha scored a hat trick in Barça’s 4-1 win, with 17-year-old Lamine Yamal helping set up the Brazilian’s third with a spectacular long-range pass:
Liverpool, Inter Milan, Lille, Dinamo Zagreb and Feyenoord also won, while Atlético Madrid, Benfica and FC Salzburg and Young Boys all lost at home.
Here are the biggest takeaways from Wednesday’s games.
Can Barcelona compete for the title this season ?
Three years after Lionel Messi left Barcelona, are the five-time European title winners finally legitimate contenders for the Champions League crown once again?
The Blaugrana sure looked like it on Wednesday, rocking Bayern Munich to put the exclamation point on this round’s results in the world’s marquee club competition.
Truth be told, Barça weren’t really in the running during Messi’s final few years at the club. Who can forget the 8-2 drubbing Bayern hung on the GOAT & Co. in the 2020 quarterfinals that signaled the beginning of the end of Barcelona most successful era?
Bayern went on to win the Champions League that season. Their coach? Hansi Flick, who has been a revelation during his first season at the helm in Catalonia. Barça is currently leading Spain’s La Liga with a 9-1 record.
Flick’s team has everything left to prove. Last month’s 2-1 loss in Monaco was a red flag even if it was marred by an early red card. Same for the league defeat at Osasuna less than two weeks later. At their scintillating best, though, Barcelona should fear nobody. Wednesday’s rout left little doubt about that.
Liverpool stays perfect with win in Germany
Speaking of trophy contenders, the Reds went into Wednesday’s contest in Leipzig knowing that they needed a win to stay perfect and match Champions League leader and English rival Aston Villa’s 3-0 start to the European campaign.
It wasn’t always pretty, but three points are what Liverpool got. Arne Slot’s team got a first half goal from Darwin Núñez — who made sure that what looked like a goal-bound header from Mohamed Salah got across the line in the 27th minute — and shut down the hosts the rest of the way.
The defensive performance was particularly impressive from the Reds, who are now 8-0 across all competitions since that shocking 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest at Anfield on Sept. 14. It remains the only game they haven’t won all season.
A reminder from Manchester City
If City’s September Champions League home opener against Inter Milan — a rematch of the 2023 final that brought club soccer’s most coveted piece of silverware to the blue half of Manchester for the first time — left some doubting whether Pep Guardiola’s team was truly prepared to take another run at glory this term, consider the last two games the Citizens’ retort.
Sure, crushing Sparta Prague 5-0 on Wednesday on the heels of a 4-0 demolition of Slovan Bratislava on Oct. 1 is less eye-catching than similar scorelines would be against better quality opponents. City’s final five first round matches, including trips to Sporting Lisbon, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, will tell us where Guardiola’s side stands heading into the knockout stage early next year.
Until then, the Sky Blues remain the bookies’ favorite. For good reason, too, as they still boast soccer’s most lethal striker in Erling Haaland, who bagged a brace on Wednesday. His first strike was downright superhuman:
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports. A former staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports, he has covered U.S. men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.
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