Key events
Newcastle United 1-0 Athletic Club. A free kick for Kieran Trippier out on the left. He curls it into the mixer, hoping lightning will strike twice with Dan Burn. But he overhits the free kick to such an extent that even the six-feet-seven-inch defender can’t reach it.
Manchester City 2-0 Borussia Dortmund. Serhou Guirassy goes over the top of the ball and lands his studs on Jeremy Doku’s shin. The boot scrapes down onto the top of Doku’s boot, the final landing spot. That gives both referee and VAR an out, which they cowardly grab, ignoring the first shin impact. It should have been a red card.
GOAL! Manchester City 2-0 Borussia Dortmund (Haaland 29)
… well, Dortmund clear it. But Savinho comes back at them down the right. His low cross is parried by keeper Kobel. However the ball ends up with Doku on the other flank. He reaches the byline and cuts back for that man Haaland, who swivels on the spot to lash into the right-hand side of the net. Just as well Kobel didn’t get to that one, because it might have taken his hand off.
Manchester City 1-0 Borussia Dortmund. Erling Haaland has been racking up the goals, but he could have added an assist here. He rolls a pass from the left-hand edge of the Dortmund D to Nico O’Reilly, who leans back and flippers a rising shot towards the top left. Gregor Kobel does extremely well to tip over. But from the resulting corner …
Ajax 0-0 Galatasaray. A Galatasaray corner comes in from the left. Victor Osimhen rises highest and plants a header towards the bottom right. Remko Pasveer turns it around the post. What an effort, what a save. Rock-bottom Ajax are desperate for their first point of this league campaign; that it’s come to this for the four-time champions.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Borussia Dortmund (Foden 22)
Tijjani Reijnders finds Phil Foden in a pocket of space just to the right of the Dortmund D. Foden spins, takes a touch, picks his spot, opens his body, and threads a low curler around Gregor Kobel and into the bottom left. That’s such a cute goal.
Newcastle United 1-0 Athletic Club. Newcastle have Nick Pope to thank for their still being in the lead. Unai Gomez tears off down the right, enters the box, and tries to beat Pope at his near post. His low drive is kicked around the post, a brilliant save. And then from the resulting corner, Adama Boiro pearls a rising shot from the edge of the box off the left-hand post!
GOAL! Brugge 2-1 Barcelona (Forbs 16). Barca are pressing forward, but the ball is lost and punted upfield. From the halfway line, Carlos Forbs and Hans Vanaken one-two at speed, the former racing off down the inside-right channel before entering the box, opening his body, and flipping a shot across Wojciech Szczęsny and into the left-hand side of the net.
Marseille 0-0 Atalanta. This is all about Marseille keeper Gerónimo Rulli, whose poor pass out allows Nikola Krstović to race back into the box and attempt to round him. Krstović goes over Rulli, who catches him. Penalty … which is then turned around the post by Rulli. Charles De Ketelaere missed it, a weak effort towards the bottom right.
GOAL! Newcastle United 1-0 Athletic Club (Burn 11)
Newcastle with a free kick out on the right. From a deep position, Sandro Tonali curls it long. Dan Burn, racing in from the other flank, smacks a glorious header from 14 yards across Simon and into the top right! That’s a pearler of a header. Can a header be a pearler? The Steve Nicol rule, established at Highbury in 1987, says yes.
Newcastle United 0-0 Athletic Club. Joelinton is sent powering down the inside-right channel. He holds off his marker and steers a lovely effort across Unai Simon and into the bottom left. But it’s quickly chalked off by VAR for offside. However, no matter, because a couple of minutes later …
GOAL! Brugge 1-1 Barcelona (Torres 8). Well that didn’t take long. Almost immediately after kick-off, Fermín López makes good down the right and curls in for Ferran Torres, who twists in mid-air to guide a shot across Nordin Jackers and into the bottom right.
GOAL! Brugge 1-0 Barcelona (Tresoldi 6). Carlos Forbs romps down the right flank and curls a low ball into the Barca box, where Nicolo Tresoldi slides in to direct into the bottom right. There’s a VAR check for offside, but Forbs timed his initial run just so.
Newcastle United 0-0 Athletic Club. Newcastle by contrast are seeing a little bit more of the ball on their own patch. But it’s a slow-enough start at St James’ Park as well.
Manchester City 0-0 Borussia Dortmund. The 1997 champions are seeing most of the ball during the (very) early exchanges at the City of Manchester Stadium. A couple of minutes in, and the hosts have hardly touched the thing.
Peep! (x7)
Teams are emerging from tunnels all across Europe. Zadok the Priest (Version) blaring out hither and yon. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes!
Going into the 8pm kick-offs, here’s how the league phase currently looks. When it’s all completed after eight games, the top eight will go through to the round of 16, positions nine to 16 will be seeded in the knockout stage and be drawn against positions 17 to 24, and everyone below will go home. So that’s a pretty big defeat for Villarreal in Cyprus tonight … and Chelsea now have a job on if they want to grab one of those top-eight spots, because they host Barcelona next, and still have to travel to Atalanta and Napoli.
Some good(ish) news for Manchester City fans, as Pep Guardiola tells TNT Sport there is no huge injury issue concerning the absent Rodri. “It doesn’t feel perfect, so that’s why we don’t take a risk … he will come up … a little, little, little, little setback … he will not be out for a while.”
FULL TIME: Qarabağ 2-2 Chelsea
Qarabağ’s first-ever game in the Champions League proper was a 6-0 reverse at Chelsea in 2017. Look at them now. They’ve come a long way. Speaking of which, Chelsea face a six-hour flight back to Blighty after this extremely disappointing result against a club that had previously lost all seven of their matches against English teams, the last six without troubling the scoreboard. John Brewin has the details.
FULL TIME: Pafos 1-0 Villarreal
The first result of the evening is in … and it’s a first-ever victory in the Champions League proper for the Cypriot club! It comes at the expense of the erstwhile Europa League winners, Derrick Luckassen scoring the only goal of the game just after the break.
To be fair, Pafos have already done for the famous Dynamo Kyiv (two-time Cup Winners’ Cup champions) and Red Star Belgrade (1991 European champs) in the qualifiers, but you get the point.
The teams elsewhere
Ajax: Pasveer, Gaaei, Sutalo, Baas, Wijndal, Klaassen, Regeer, Mokio, Godts, Weghorst, Gloukh.
Subs: Jaros, Rosa, Heerkens, Itakura, Moro, McConnell, Edvardsen, Konadu, Fitz-Jim, Alders, Bounida.
Galatasaray: Cakir, Singo, Sanchez, Bardakci, Sallai, Lemina, Torreira, Jakobs, Sane, Gabriel Sara, Osimhen.
Subs: Sen, Baltaci, Guvenc, Icardi, Elmali, Kutlu, Kutucu, Ayhan, Demir, Yilmaz, Unyay.
Benfica: Trubin, Aursnes, Tomas Araujo, Otamendi, Dahl, Barrenechea, Rios, Lukebakio, Barreiro, Sudakov, Pavlidis.
Subs: Soares, Obrador, Antonio Silva, Ivanovic, Dedic, Schjelderup, Prestianni, Henrique Araujo, Wynder, Veloso, Rego, Prioste.
Bayer Leverkusen: Flekken, Quansah, Bade, Tapsoba, Arthur, Maza, Garcia, Grimaldo, Echeverri, Poku, Kofane.
Subs: Blaswich, Lomb, Tillman, Schick, Ben Seghir, Mensah, Culbreath, Belocian, Pohl.
Club Brugge: Jackers, Sabbe, Ordonez, Mechele, Seys, Stankovic, Nwadike, Forbs, Vanaken, Tzolis, Tresoldi.
Subs: van den Heuvel, de Corte, Romero, Vetlesen, Sandra, Vermant, Nilsson, Siquet, Spileers, Audoor, Diakhon, Campbell.
Barcelona: Szczesny, Kounde, Araujo, Eric Garcia, Balde, Casado, de Jong, Yamal, Lopez, Rashford, Torres.
Subs: Kochen, Aller, Cubarsi, Lewandowski, Gerard, Olmo, Bernal, Dro Fernandez, Bardghji, Espart.
Internazionale: Sommer, Bisseck, de Vrij, Carlos Augusto, Dumfries, Barella, Frattesi, Zielinski, Dimarco, Esposito, Lautaro Martinez.
Subs: Josep Martinez, Calligaris, Sucic, Thuram, Luis Henrique, Bonny, Acerbi, Diouf, Calhanoglu, Akanji, Alexiou, Bastoni.
Kairat: Anarbekov, Mrynskiy, Shirobokov, Sorokin, Mata, Satpaev, Arad, Kasabulat, Gromyko, Jorginho, Edmilson.
Subs: Zarutskiy, Kalmurza, Kurgin, Sadybekov, Zaria, Baybek, Glazer, Tapalov, Stanojev, Ricardinho.
Marseille: Rulli, Murillo, Aguerd, Pavard, Egan-Riley, Garcia, Greenwood, O’Riley, Hojbjerg, Igor Paixao, Aubameyang.
Subs: de Lange, Van Neck, Gomes, Vermeeren, Vaz, Bakola, Mmadi, Clement, Bang Na, Lago.
Atalanta: Carnesecchi, Kossounou, Djimsiti, Ahanor, Bellanova, de Roon, Ederson Silva, Zappacosta, De Ketelaere, Krstovic, Lookman.
Subs: Rossi, Sportiello, Hien, Musah, Sulemana, Pasalic, Scamacca, Samardzic, Kolasinac, Bernasconi, Zalewski, Maldini.
Newcastle v Athletic teams
Newcastle United: Pope, Trippier, Thiaw, Botman, Burn, Guimaraes, Tonali, Joelinton, Barnes, Woltemade, Gordon.
Subs: Thompson, Ramsdale, Hall, Schar, Krafth, Osula, Elanga, Jacob Murphy, Willock, Alex Murphy, Ramsey, Miley.
Athletic Bilbao: Simon, Areso, Vivian, Paredes, Boiro, Jauregizar, Rego, Vesga, Berenguer, Gomez, Navarro.
Subs: Santos, Padilla, Gorosabel, Laporte, Lekue, Ruiz de Galarreta, Serrano, Ibon Sanchez, Izagirre, Selton Sanchez, Hierro.
Newcastle United make two changes after their miserable 3-1 loss at West Ham United. Harvey Barnes and Kieran Trippier come in for Emil Krafth and Jacob Murphy, who both drop to the bench.
Man City v Dortmund teams
Manchester City: Donnarumma, Nunes, Stones, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Gonzalez, Savio, Reijnders, Foden, Doku, Haaland.
Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Dias, Ake, Marmoush, Cherki, Silva, Ait Nouri, Khusanov, Bobb, Lewis.
Borussia Dortmund: Kobel, Anton, Schlotterbeck, Bensebaini, Ryerson, Nmecha, Sabitzer, Svensson, Adeyemi, Beier, Guirassy.
Subs: Ostrzinski, Meyer, Yan Couto, Bellingham, Gross, Chukwuemeka, Silva, Can, Anselmino.
Manchester City make three changes to their starting XI following the 3-1 home win over Bournemouth on Sunday. John Stones, Savinho and Tijjani Reijnders come in for Rúben Dias, Rayan Cherki and Bernardo Silva, who all drop to the bench. Erling Haaland takes the captain’s armband from Silva, and leads City against his old club.
There are two 5.45pm GMT kick-offs, and those matches have both just reached half-time. Pafos and Villarreal are goalless at the break in Cyprus, while in Azerbaijan, Chelsea trail Qarabağ 2-1, having led early doors. And they’ve also lost Romeo Lavia to injury. John Brewin has the latest from Baku.
Preamble
It’s another busy night in the Champions League. Busy, if not particularly laced with jeopardy, such is the nature of the sprawling Swiss behemoth, but let’s not start pulling at those threads now. Here’s this evening’s card …
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Ajax v Galatasaray
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Benfica v Bayer Leverkusen
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Brugge v Barcelona
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Internazionale v Kairat
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Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund
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Marseille v Atalanta
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Newcastle United v Athletic Club
… and we’ll bring you all the team news as it comes in. Then the goals. Then the results. You know the pack drill. The evening gets going at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
