Napoli and Carlo Ancelotti really know how to handle Liverpool. After defeating Klopp’s side last year in Italy, they repeated the same success this season. The pattern was the same; only the win is higher, 2-0. Napoli was stubborn, and they managed to break L’pool’s defense in the finish of the match, and with two goals open their Champions League adventure in the best possible way. The first goal came after Dries Mertens’ penalty. Previously, Jose Callejon perfectly simulated Andy Robertson’s foul inside the box.
The world’s most exciting soccer competition, the UEFA Champions League started this Tuesday. And judging by the first result, this is going to be another thrilling campaign. The current European champions Liverpool lost in Naples against Napoli, while Barcelona barely escaped death in Germany against Borussia Dortmund.
The second goal was a work of Tottenham’s former striker, Fernando Llorente following a mistake of UEFA’s player of the year, Virgil van Dijk. Just to remind you, that Napoli defeated Liverpool this summer also, in the International Champions Cup with 3-0.
In the second match of Group E in which are Napoli and Liverpool, Red Bull Salzburg humiliated the Belgian champions Genk with 6-2. The absolute star of the game and the first day of the UCL was Erling Braut Haland, and 19-year old who posted a hat-trick on his debut in the Champions League.
Barcelona had a lot of luck in Germany. Blaugrana got away with a 0-0 draw against Borussia Dortmund in the derby match of Group F. The home team was much better, and was closer to winning the contest, but a fantastic goalkeeper Ter Stegen saved the Spanish powerhouse on numerous occasions. He even stopped Marco Reus’ penalty shot.
Borussia was pressuring the rival constantly, they’ve hit the crossbar, and had a few more very good opportunities to score, but lacked composure. On the other side, Barca was waiting a chance to strike from the counter-attack, but they didn’t have that many situations to do so. Lionel Messi came off the bench, but didn’t change anything on the pitch.
Inter Milan who is in the same group, disappointed its fans at home, playing just 1-1 with Slavia Prague. And the one point came in the second minute of the stoppage time. We can say that Antonio Conte’s boys utterly failed to meet the expectations, and if they continue to play like this, it is hard to believe in their advance to the knockout stage.
Chelsea also made an unpleasant surprise for their fans. The Blues lost at home against Valencia, 0-1, although they had a chance to avoid that defeat. Ross Barkley missed a penalty, and complicated his relationships with Willian and Jorginho who wanted to take the responsibility on themselves. We’ll see what happens next, but the chemistry on the field after that was very bad. Frank Lampard will be in a lot of trouble to fix this.
The other match of that assembly, Group H, saw Ajax easily handling Lilles. The Dutch champions won with 3-0.
And in the last group, G, Red Bull Leipzig took three huge points in Portugal, by beating Benfica 1-2. Lyon and Russian champions, Zenit, played 1-1 in France.
