Vinicius Junior and Raphinha both scored hat-tricks for Real Madrid and Barcelona against German opposition this week — and El Clasico is on Saturday.
With victories on Wednesday for Liverpool and Manchester City, English clubs occupy 1-2-3 at the top of the Champions League standings, and between them the four Premier League teams (hi Arsenal) have conceded just once.
The Madrid clubs must be sick of the sight of the Lille and Canada striker Jonathan David after he inspired a 3-1 win away to Atletico Madrid, weeks after his goal helped them beat Real in France.
And what on earth was that goal by Erling Haaland, channelling his inner Zlatan Ibrahimovic during Man City’s rout of Sparta Prague?
We analyse the key talking points from Wednesday’s Champions League action…
Raphinha and Vinicius warming up nicely for El Clasico…
Even Raphinha’s biggest admirers during his successful two-season spell at Leeds United surely didn’t anticipate this. After a so-so couple of years since moving to Barcelona in 2022, the Brazilian suddenly seems like Barcelona’s defining player, and is wearing the captain’s armband too.
Raphinha scored two well-taken goals here which bookended the first half, storming in behind and rounding Manuel Neuer in the opening minute, then cutting inside and firing home on the stroke of half-time. The curious thing is that it’s the former that has been more typical of his play this season. While reverting to being a winger tonight, he’s thrived in a No 10 role, running off Robert Lewandowski and past the opposition defence.
His glorious hat-trick goal was almost a combination of the two, starting from wide and roaring in behind to finish confidently into the far corner. Three shots, and three goals. Quite the way to mark his 100th appearance for the club.
On Tuesday, Vinicius Junior scored three times as Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. Twenty-four hours later, his Brazil team-mate did the same for Barcelona, also against German opposition.
This weekend Spain’s two top teams and their in-form Brazilians will go head-to-head in El Clasico (8pm GMT, 3pm ET).
Michael Cox
English clubs are sitting pretty at the top
Javier Tebas, Florentino Perez, and all other critics of the Premier League’s dominance, look away now: English clubs are ruling the roost in the Champions League this season.
Fresh from the relative embarrassment of failing to claim the fifth “coefficient” Champions League spot due to an overall underperformance across Europe’s three major club competitions last season, Premier League sides have returned with a vengeance. Aston Villa, one of the surprise packages of this season’s tournament, top the Champions League table with three wins from three, six goals scored and zero conceded.
Liverpool are currently second, the only other side with a perfect record thus far after beating RB Leipzig in Germany on Wednesday. Manchester City, who sit on seven points, round out the top three with nine goals scored and zero conceded after thrashing Sparta Prague, while Arsenal sit ninth, just outside the automatic knockout spots, having also yet to concede a goal.
Arsenal’s clean-sheet record will be tested against Inter in the next round of fixtures, the side who kept City at bay in the opening gameweek.
However, given their strong start to life in Europe, all English clubs will feel good about their prospects of securing automatic qualification to the knockouts — and it bodes well for England’s coefficient when it comes to spots being allocated for next season’s Champions League too.
What on earth was that by Erling Haaland?
When you think you’ve seen everything possible from serial record-breaker Erling Haaland, the Norwegian pops up on a Wednesday night at the Etihad Stadium with something out of this world.
By Haaland’s ridiculous standards, two matches without a goal is a barren spell, and Sparta Prague had done a good job of extending his misfortunes until a moment of magic minutes before the hour mark.
With City 1-0 up, Brazil international winger Savinho sized up Sparta’s Matej Rynes before shifting the wing-back off balance with a stepover and a drop of the shoulder. As Savinho advanced towards the byline, Haaland made a sharp movement from the far post, around eight yards from goal, to the centre of the net, in line with the penalty spot.
Savinho chipped a cross that looked set to pass the Norwegian before the 24-year-old connected with an outrageous aerial backheel.
With his foot in line with his head, Haaland somehow guided his shot past Peter Vindahl Jensen, bouncing once before crossing the line in the top-right corner.
ACROBATIC BACK-HEEL! 🤯
43 goals in 42 Champions League games for Erling Haaland… and this one was scored in style 🤖
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/hgwjPgSHTD
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 23, 2024
HOW!?! 🤯
Erling Haaland with an acrobatic finish to remember 💫 pic.twitter.com/DANwBX30JY
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) October 23, 2024
It was reminiscent of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s goal against Toronto FC in 2018, his 500th goal in professional football. However, Haaland’s is arguably even more impressive.
And after that moment of brilliance, the floodgates opened at the Etihad, with the Premier League champions eventually winning the game 5-0.
Brest’s fairytale run in Europe continues
There’s a Cinderella story in this season’s Champions League, and it’s happening in the northwest corner of France.
In their debut European campaign, Brest, who only won promotion to Ligue 1 in 2019, have recorded a remarkable seven points from their opening three matches. They began their Champions League odyssey with a 2-1 win over similarly unfavoured Sturm Graz before convincingly dispatching RB Salzburg, also of Austria, 4-0 on October 1.
However, holding reigning German Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen to a 1-1 draw is arguably their biggest scalp yet.
Germany international Florian Wirtz opened the scoring for Leverkusen in the 24th minute at Brest’s Stade Francis-Le Ble, receiving the ball on the edge of the box before finishing past Marco Buzot in the hosts’ goal. With that finish, Wirtz became the fifth player born after the millennium to score 15 major European goals, after Phil Foden, Rodrygo, Erling Haaland and Vinicius Junior.
However, Brest fired back 15 minutes later through former Norwich City forward Pierre Lees-Melou, who guided a volley into the bottom-right corner of the net from outside the box. Despite Leverkusen’s perceived superiority, Brest kept their opponents at bay during the second half — reducing them to one clear chance and an xG of just 0.97 across the 90.
According to The Athletic’s Champions League projections, which are powered by Opta data, Brest were predicted to tally just eight points in this season’s revamped league phase — a total they already look set to surpass comfortably. Their form in Ligue 1 has taken a hit (they currently sit 11th in France’s 18-team top tier), but fans will surely trade domestic success for a dream run into the knockout stage of Europe’s premier club competition.
Just ask PSG’s fans. The French champions are currently topping Ligue 1, but sit 19th in the Champions League table with just one win from three — 14 places below Brest.
What’s up with the Red Bull clubs?
Forget the demonstrations at your former clubs, Jurgen — if the performances of the Red Bull sides in the Champions League are anything to go by, you have your work cut out for you in your new job.
Red Bull Salzburg currently sit 34th in the league phase, two places from the bottom. They opened their campaign with a 3-0 away defeat to Sparta Prague before taking a 4-0 hammering from Brest. This week, they lost 2-0 to Dinamo Zagreb, and with PSG, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid still awaiting the Austrians, the chances of their campaign getting much better appear slim.
Like Salzburg, RB Leipzig have also suffered three defeats from their opening trio of matches. However, the Germans, who currently sit second in the Bundesliga, have faced Atletico, Juventus and Liverpool to start the tournament — arguably the most challenging opening of any side this season.
Leipzig will look to their next match, an away tie against Celtic, as an opportunity to record their first win, and they end the league phase against fellow strugglers Sturm Graz. Still, with Sporting, Inter and the red-hot Villa still to play, it would take an extraordinary turnaround for the club from Saxony to advance.
Jonathan David, the master of Madrid
Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid will be glad to see the back of Jonathan David.
David, born in Brooklyn, New York, has started the season on fire. He has scored five goals in eight Ligue 1 matches, including a hat-trick against Le Havre, but it’s in European competition where the striker has caught the international eye.
In Lille’s last match, David scored the winning goal in a historic 1-0 victory over tournament holders Real Madrid, and he went one better with a brace against their arch-rivals on Wednesday. With the scores at 1-1, David calmly lifted a penalty over Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak to put the French side ahead in Madrid.
Fifteen minutes later, David put the icing on the cake with a deflected left-foot volley that looped over the helpless goalkeeper. Lille now sit 15th in the standings, firmly in the hunt for qualification for the knockout phase.
David, who is out of contract in the summer and attracting the attention of some of Europe’s biggest clubs, may even make a January move before Lille reach that stage.
The results from matchweek three
- AC Milan 3 Club Bruges 1
- Monaco 5 Red Star Belgrade 1
- Arsenal 1 Shakhtar Donetsk 0
- Aston Villa 2 Bologna 0
- Girona 2 Slovan Bratislava 0
- Juventus 0 Stuttgart 1
- Paris Saint-Germain 1 PSV Eindhoven 1
- Real Madrid 5 Borussia Dortmund 2
- Sturm Graz 0 Sporting Lisbon 2
- Atalanta 0 Celtic 0
- Brest 1 Bayer Leverkusen 1
- Atletico Madrid 1 Lille 3
- Barcelona 4 Bayern Munich 1
- Benfica 1 Feyenoord 3
- Manchester City 5 Sparta Prague 0
- RB Leipzig 0 Liverpool 1
- Red Bull Salzburg 0 Dinamo Zagreb 2
- Young Boys 0 Inter Milan 1
What’s next?
The next round of matches take place in the week of November 5/6 and features some blockbuster clashes: Real Madrid v Milan, Inter v Arsenal and Liverpool v Leverkusen.
(Photos: Getty Images)
