Newcastle defeated PSG in the second round of the Champions League group stage

In the second round of the group stage of the Champions League football, Manchester City and Barcelona won further victories. The English club defeated RB Leipzig – 3:1, and the Catalan club beat Porto – 1:0. In addition, Atlético Madrid and Newcastle came out on top in their groups, with the latter unexpectedly defeating PSG – 4:1.

In groups G and H, matches took place between the leaders and the main contenders for reaching the playoffs, who had already won victories at the start of the main Champions League tournament. In Leipzig, the local club hosted the current trophy winner Manchester City, to whom it lost last season at the 1/8 final stage. Then, at home, the “red bulls” played with the English giants 1:1, however, then they flew away with a whistle – 0:7, falling under the hot hand of Erling Haaland, who scored five goals for them.

Now City, of course, were again the favorites, and everything seemed to be going well for them. The visitors beat Leipzig confidently in the first half, with Phil Foden opening the scoring. However, in the opening of the second they let their guard down, and Lois Openda scored in a sharp counterattack. The hosts clung to the draw and kept Haaland firmly in check, but the Manchester team still put the squeeze on the German team thanks to the depth and quality of their bench. Julian Alvarez and Jeremy Doku made the difference – 3:1. City, as expected, leads with six points. But Leipzig is not in any danger either, since Red Star and Young Boys ended in a tie – 2:2, scoring one point each.

There is no doubt that Barcelona and Porto will advance from Group H to the 1/8 finals, which immediately indicated their total superiority over Antwerp and Shakhtar. In fact, all they have to do is pay each other off for the first or second. Actually, who of them is better, blue-white and blue-garnet, was found out at the Dragan stadium.

In general, it was a match of equal opponents, who for a long time and successfully prevented each other from playing. Before the break, they created a minimum of situations that could lead to a goal. If the balls sometimes reached the goal, the goalkeepers caught them in warm-up mode. The teams probably would have ended the first half 0:0, but in injury time, Romário Baro, out of the blue, messed up in his own half of the field. Ilkay Gundogan calmly picked up the ball he had lost, redirected it to Ferran Torres, and he, running one on one with goalkeeper Diogo Costa, calmly hit the goal. By the way, Robert Lewandowski should have been in Torres’ place, but the Polish striker of Barca was injured, and it was he who was replaced by the Spanish footballer in the 34th minute.

In the second half, the Catalan defenders also made a grave mistake, missing the Brazilian Pepe, but as soon as he hesitated a little with the shot, Jules Kounde took the ball off his foot and eliminated the threat. Otherwise, the match was still replete with fights and fouls, and not scoring chances. The guests were almost exclusively focused on defending their minimal advantage, while the hosts lacked creativity to break down this dense defense. And Barca goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen was on alert when Mehdi Taremi and Wenderson Galeno finally shot at his goal. Porto was also unlucky a couple of times: first when VAR overturned a penalty that had already been awarded in its favor and then when Taremi scored beautifully from a mini-offside position. The Portuguese club did not have enough time to implement the removal of Gavi for the second yellow card.

Thus, Barcelona with six points became the sole leader of Quartet N. Porto had three points, and Shakhtar caught up with them, who won a strong-willed victory over Antwerp – 3:2, losing 0:2.

In the strongest group of the current Champions League under the letter F, PSG, which took the lead with three points, visited Newcastle, which achieved a draw in Milan in the first round. And now, at their home St. James’ Park, the black and whites didn’t just fight the French superclub – they defeated it. United were 2-0 up at half-time when Miguel Almiron and Dan Byrne punished the Parisians for obvious defensive lapses. It seemed that the visitors would come to their senses in the second half, but then their goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made a mistake, failing to parry Sean Longstaff’s shot from a tight angle. Lucas Hernandez reduced the deficit to two goals, but Newcastle won 4-1. Fabian Scher scored a spectacular point with a long-range shot into the top corner. As a result, Newcastle have four points, PSG have three. Milan and Borussia, who held a goalless draw in Dortmund, have two and one, respectively.

In Group E, Atlético faced Feyenoord, which started with a victory over Celtic, while Madrid missed out on two points in the match against Lazio, conceding a return goal before the final whistle from Roman goalkeeper Ivan Provedel. But if the first game ended unsuccessfully for them, then the second one began. Mario Hermoso sent the ball into his own net, trying to help goalkeeper Jan Oblak stop Ayase Ueda’s breakthrough. The own goal woke up Atlético and Alvaro Morata quickly restored equality. However, then the hosts missed the connection of Feyenoord central defender David Ganzko to the set piece and were again forced to recoup. Antoine Griezmann managed to do this with an overhead kick, and immediately after the break Morata scored a double. It is curious that in the end, Rotterdam goalkeeper Timon Wellenreuther also tried to score against Madrid, but this trick did not work with them again.

Atlético won with great difficulty 3:2 and ousted Feyenoord from first place with four points. Lazio now has four points, having defeated Celtic on their field – 2:1. Everything was decided in the fifth added minute of the match by experienced Spanish forward Pedro Rodriguez. Feyenoord have three points, Celtic have zero.

Alexander Ilyin