Champions League: Manchester Metropolis’s struggles proceed, Christian Pulisic scores once more
Manchester Metropolis’s five-game shedding streak lastly got here to an finish on Tuesday — simply not the way in which anybody anticipated.
The four-time defending English champs squandered a 3-0 lead over visiting Dutch facet Feyenoord within the ultimate quarter-hour of the second half, settling for a shocking 3-3 tie and only a single level on Matchday 5 of the UEFA Champions League first spherical.
Elsewhere, Christian Pulisic’s blistering begin to the 2024-25 season continued with one other Champions League aim on Tuesday. The U.S. males’s nationwide workforce star’s first half strike helped Italian titans AC Milan beat Slovan Bratislava away from residence, a 3-2 win that gave the Rossoneri its third straight victory within the opening spherical of the world’s high membership competitors.
In Portugal, England’s Arsenal made fast work of Sporting Lisbon on the way in which to a 5-1 victory. In Spain, Barcelona breezed previous French squad Brest to climb into second place behind Inter Milan, whereas Bayern Munich rode a Kim Min-jae aim to narrowly beat 10-man Paris Saint Germain in a rematch of the 2020 ultimate that was gained by the German titans.
Listed here are three fast highlights from Tuesday’s matches.
Manchester Metropolis’s struggles laid naked
Man Metropolis has been so good for therefore lengthy underneath Pep Guardiola that the freak-out degree stayed comparatively low even because the Sky Blues shedding streak dragged on; Tuesday marked a month to the day since Metropolis earned a lot as a degree in any match.
Guardiola, who inked a contract extension final week, has earned the advantage of the doubt. So have his gamers. The Cityzens had been all the time going to thump somebody finally, and that somebody appeared to be Feyenoord. Although they stored the host of the board for nearly all the primary half at Metropolis of Manchester Stadium, the dam broke with a forty fourth minute penalty award, which Erling Haaland duly took benefit of. İlkay Gündoğan doubled the lead shortly after the intermission. Haaland then added Metropolis’s third.
The end result appeared past doubt at that time. However Metropolis’s defensive points had been laid naked during the last quarter-hour. Anis Hadj-Moussa first reduce the hosts’ result in 3-1 on a preventable play. Mexican ahead Santiago Giménez made issues fascinating by making it 3-2.
Certain sufficient, the equalizer got here from heart again Dávid Hancko within the 89th minute — finishing some of the unlikely Champions League comebacks in current reminiscence. The shedding streak could also be over, however the issues for Guardiola & Co. clearly will not be.
Arsenal drubs Sporting Lisbon to get again on observe
On paper, the Gunners go to to Lisbon was a difficult one. On the sector at Estádio José Alvalade it was something however. Arsenal, which suffered a 1-0 defeat at Inter earlier this month, took the lead through Gabriel Martinelli after simply seven minutes and by no means seemed again.
It was 3-0 and halftime and 5-1 earlier than it was over, with 5 totally different scorers for the Londoners. The one blemish on the night time for Mikel Arteta’s workforce was the aim it gave as much as Gonçalo Inácio simply after halftime.
The lopsided win vaulted the Gunners into seventh place for now. They’re going to host Monaco on the Emirates on Matchday 6.
Christian Pulisic’s AC Milan teammates come to the rescue
It was a constant theme over the marketing campaign’s first couple of months: the seven-time European champs dropping factors regardless of Pulisic’s constant, career-best manufacturing. Conceding three straight targets in a 3-1 September loss to Liverpool after the American had given Milan an early lead is the prime instance.
Milan misplaced its subsequent Champions League recreation, too, to Bundesliga holders Bayer Leverkusen. However a pair of subsequent 3-1 wins over Membership Brugge and particularly defending titlist Actual Madrid within the Spanish capital has clearly boosted the gamers’ confidence, even when consecutive attracts in Serie A play within the two video games afterward did not present it.
Tuesday’s triumph felt like a recreation Milan may not have gained earlier this season — not after it took the hosts simply three minutes to cancel out Pulisic’s medical opener.
His teammates got here to the rescue this time. Rafael Leão (who surprisingly got here off the bench) and Tammy Abraham scored within the second half, and that two-goal cushion proved essential after Slovan pulled one other one again with simply two minutes of normal time remaining.
There’s clearly a distinction between Slovan and Liverpool. The previous, at 0-5, sits useless final within the 36-team desk. Nonetheless, successful away within the Champions League isn’t a formality. And the three factors depend simply the identical for Milan, which is now in place to advance to the knockout stage because the match enters the ultimate stretch.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports activities. A employees author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports activities earlier than becoming a member of FOX Sports activities in 2021, he has coated United States males’s and girls’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Observe him @ByDougMcIntyre.
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