Tielemans in Villa history, Onana also a scorer
The evening began with two Belgian goals on the Swiss pitch of Young Boys. The first was scored by Youri Tielemans who, with his beautiful cross shot after a corner (27th), entered the history of Aston Villa, who had not scored in the Champions League for 41 years. The other came at the end of the match (86th) to seal the score (0-3) on a powerful pass from Amadou Onana who unlocked his personal counter in the competition.
“It was a special moment for the club, which had not played in this competition for over 40 years,” said man of the match Youri Tielemans, who had a full performance. “So it was up to us to put in a big performance on the pitch. Now we’re off and running and we really want to achieve something in this competition.”
Champions League: Youri Tielemans and Amadou Onana both score with Aston Villa (VIDEOS)
Bakayoko assists, difficult start for Dams
The other historic moment of the first half of the evening came from Turin: Kenan Yildiz, the young Turkish striker from Juventus, became the first goalscorer of this new Champions League. In the 21st minute, he took advantage of PSV’s defensive problems to score a beautiful strike from his left wing.
PSV is indeed suffering from serious absences at its two full-back positions. Which forced Ledezema, an attacking midfielder, to step in at right back. While it was the young Belgian Matteo Dams (20 years old) who took charge of the left side. And for his big debut in the Champions League, the one who was trained at PSV from the age of 8 showed great things but it was by losing his duel with Gonzalez that the second Bianconeri goal fell (27th).
As for Johan Bakayoko, also a starter, he tried hard to boost his performance from his right side, but it was only in stoppage time that he managed to find the fault, providing the assist to reduce the score to Saibari (90th + 3: 3-1). Note that Samuel Mbangula did not get up from the Turin bench.
Courtois pulls out all the stops
There were then four other big games to come from 9pm. Including the entry into the competition of the defending champion, Real Madrid. And as was often the case last season, the Merengues suffered before emerging against Stuttgart. Without several big saves from Thibaut Courtois – particularly in the first half – we would probably have experienced a first major surprise.
We did, of course, see a reaction from an assist from Rodrygo and a finish from Mbappé (46th). But Stuttgart then managed to equalize via the former Unionist Denz Undav (68th). It therefore took other interventions from Courtois then a furious header from Rüdiger and finally a goal from the young Brazilian Endrick (90th + 5: 3-1) to save face from a generally disappointing Real.
Debast sends a missile
In Lisbon, three Belgians were also out. Zeno Debast started for Sporting, Thomas Meunier for Lille, while Matias Fernandez-Pardo came on in the second half for Lille. And even if it was Gyökeres who put Lisbon in the lead (38th), we will especially remember the real bomb sent by Debast, from more than 25 meters, into the opponent’s top corner (65th: 2-0). It was the very first goal of his professional career but undoubtedly already one of the most beautiful of the season scored from the feet of the Belgian defender who has perhaps now definitively earned his place in the Sporting eleven.
Champions League: Zeno Debast scores an exceptional goal against Lille (VIDEO)
Kompany already in history
We were also eagerly awaiting the debut of Vincent Kompany in the Champions League, becoming the 7th Belgian coach in history to lead a foreign club in the competition. And for the occasion, his players had planned a little fireworks display (9-2).
Even though his defenders gave him the cold sweats by letting Dinamo Zagreb score twice just after the break (3-2), the Bavarians had already struck hard in the first half. With in particular a little gem from Musiala and Guerreiro.
If captain Manuel Neuer, injured in the back, had to give up his place, Kompany’s men then resumed their march forward. With notably a quadruple from Harry Kane (including three goals from penalties), who became the best English scorer in the history of the competition (33 goals), ahead of Wayne Rooney. Enough to achieve the biggest victory in Bayern’s history in the Champions League, ahead of the 7-0 against Shakhtar (2015) and Basel (2012) and the 8-2 against Barça (2020).
Champions League: Liverpool overturn AC Milan in the shock of the evening, Bayern unroll for Kompany’s debut
