UEFA Champions League
LIVE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: BARCELONA 2-8 BAYERN MUNICH; 1st TIME BARCA CONCEDE 8 IN EUROPE!
Setien’s last game in charge of Barcelona?
89MINS: Gooooal!
Gooooal!
Coutinho (Bayern) scores
Coutinho (Bayern) scores! Barcelona 2-7 Bayern Munich
GOAL – Barcelona 2-6 Bayern Munich
Robert Lewandowski
Barcelona have conceded six goals in a European match for the first time since losing 5-4 to Levski Sofia in March 1976 in the UEFA Cup. Drubbing.
63MINS: GOAL – Barcelona 2-5 Bayern Munich
GOAL! Barcelona 2-5 BAYERN MUNICH
Magic from Alphonso Davies, what a star this lad is! On the wing from a standing start, he skips past Nelson Semedo along the byline, and also sees off the challenge from Gerard Pique before laying the ball back for Josh Kimmich to tap home. The celebrations though are with the Canadian who let’s face it did 90 per cent of the work.
58mins: Gooooaaal!!!!! Barcelona fighting back through Luiz Suarez
Barcelona 2-4 Bayern
53 mins
DISALLOWED GOAL
Barcelona 1-4 Bayern Munich
Striker Robert Lewandowski taps in from Thomas Muller’s pull-back, but the midfielder was miles offside. The assistant waited for the play to be… played out.
There are howls and jeers from the piped crowd
Meanwhile Luis Suarez goes into the book for clipping Thiago.
46 MINS: Substitution. Griezmann (in) – Sergi Roberto (out) (Barcelona)
Thomas Müller has now scored 23 goals in the Champions League knockout stages, the third-most of any player behind Cristiano Ronaldo (67) and Lionel Messi (47). Stage.
2nd Half resumes
Can Barcelona turn this game around?
They will need a miracle to achieve that. This is the first time in the club’s history that Barcelona concedes four goals in first half.
They only need three goals to get back on level terms, but the way they are defending they are probably going to need seven goals in this next 45 minutes.
HALF-TIME
Barcelona 1-4 Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich are too slick, too powerful, too clever, too efficient.
31MINS GOOOOALL!!!!!! Thomas Muller.
29MINS: Gooooal! Gnabry (Bayern) scores!
22MINS: GOAAAL : Perišić (Bayern) scores!
13min: The end-to-end action continues as Robert Lewandowski has a shot that falls off target. Maybe he should take shooting tips from Muller, who showed how it was done earlier.
BAYERN 1-1 BARCELONA
Match summary
- Alaba slices own goal to level scores
- Müller hits opener after team move
- Boateng, Neuer deny Luis Suárez
- Winners vs Man. City/Lyon in semi-finals
GOAL! BARCELONA 1-1 Bayern Munich: David Alaba scores an own goal!
GOAL! Barcelona 0-1 BAYERN MUNICH
3min: Barcelona are in an unusual set-up of just sitting off their opponents in this early stage but they create the first dangerous moment of the tie.
Lionel Messi finds space to run into on the right but his ball into the centre is crucially cleared by Jerome Boateng with Luis Suarez ready to convert.
Tonight’s referee Damir Skomina was in charge of the second leg in 2013 when Bayern won 3-0 at Barcelona to reach the final.Update;
· Bayern name unchanged starting XI
· Busquets and Vidal in for Barcelona
· Rakitić, Griezmann drop to bench
· Winners vs Man. City/Lyon in semi-finals
Kick off! The match is under way. It’s Barcelona getting us underway in Lisbon
The players are out on the pitch, which can only mean one thing – it’s official UEFA Champions League anthem time.
Bayern Munich and Barcelona clash in one of the highlight ties of the Champions League quarter-finals as the European giants go head-to-head for a place in the final four.
Bayern Munich’s demolition of Chelsea in the last-16 makes them slight favourites heading into the tie at Benfica’s Estadio da Luz ground in Lisbon, but Barca can never be written off while they have Lionel Messi in their ranks.
It is potentially the final before the final match as Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona clash in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League.
· Barcelona starting XI: Ter Stegen, Nelson Semedo, Pique, Lenglet, Jordi Alba, Sergi Roberto, Busquets, de Jong, Vidal, Messi, Suarez
· Bayern Munich starting XI: Neuer, Kimmich, Boateng, Alaba, Davies, Thiago, Goretzka, Gnabry, Muller, Perisic, Lewandowski
BUILD UP TO TITANIC CLASH OF BARCA & BAYERN
- Barcelona and Bayern Munich have both reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the 18th time (in 24 and 23 appearances respectively), more than any other team.
- Barcelona are in the quarter-finals for the 13th consecutive year – that is every season since 2007-08, a record in the history of the competition.
- Barcelona have lost more Champions League games against Bayern than any other club, losing five of their eight matches against them (W2 D1).
- Barcelona have lost just two of their last 31 Champions League matches (W19 D10) and are unbeaten in this season’s competition (W5 D3); they are one of only three teams still yet to taste defeat this season, along with opponents Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
- Bayern striker Lewandowski has scored 13 goals in just seven Champions League appearances this season, averaging a goal every 47 minutes – in the history of the European Cup/Champions League, this is the best minutes per goal ratio in a single campaign of players to play at least 500 minutes that season.
UEFA Champions League
Osimhen and Aubameyang: Africa’s First Men of the Match in 2025/26 Champions League
The Champions League has barely started and already African fans have something to be proud of.
Two of the continent’s biggest names, Victor Osimhen from Nigeria and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Gabon, have become the first African players this season to be named Man of the Match.
For Osimhen, it was a night to remember in Istanbul. Galatasaray were up against Liverpool, a team with a European pedigree and needed someone to step up. Osimhen did just that.
His goal gave Galatasaray a 1-0 win but it was more than just the goal. His energy and how he kept Liverpool’s defenders on their toes all night made him the best player on the pitch.
So his winning of the UEFA Man of the Match award. Galatasaray fans had proof they have a striker who can change games at the highest level.
Meanwhile, on the same night in Marseille, Aubameyang was showing why he has been Africa’s most reliable goal scorer for over a decade.
At 36, some wondered if he still had it on nights like this. His answer was a thunderous “YES.”
Marseille tore Ajax apart in a 4–0 demolition that saw Aubameyang seal his stature as the orchestrator and heartbeat of the French club’s attack.
His movement, his composure and his leadership stood out. So much so that he too was rightfully awarded the Man of the Match.
The fact that these two happened on the same night made it even more special for African football fans.
Osimhen represents the new generation: quick, hungry and with still a few years ahead to make history.
Aubameyang is the veteran still out there to prove – even though he really has nothing to prove anymore – that experience and class don’t fade easily.
Together, they gave African football fans a double reason to smile.
For Nigeria and Gabon, these awards are more than individual trophies. They are ultimately a reminder of how much African players contribute to the Champions League season in, season out.
And the tournament is still in its early stages. So there’s every chance more players from the continent will follow in their footsteps before the Budapest finale in 2026. Only good omens for the 2025 AFCON that starts in a few months.
-Morocco World News
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In his glory days, Jose Mourinho celebrated dramatic goals from his teams by sprinting down the touchline, sometimes sliding on his knees for extra euphoric effect.
On Tuesday, back at his former club Chelsea as the new coach of Benfica, Mourinho’s most eye-catching intervention was down the touchline again, but this time his run was to urge his team’s fans to stop hurling objects onto the pitch.
Benfica under Mourinho, in his fourth game in charge, were defeated 1-0 by an under-strength Chelsea side in the Champions League after a fist-half Richard Rios own goal.
The self-declared “Special One” was lauded by the home fans with a few choruses of “Jose Mou-rin-ho” in recognition of his successes – three Premier League titles and four other trophies – which no other Chelsea manager has come close to matching.
Mourinho, 62, acknowledged the chants with a gentle wave, got a cheer when he ventured onto the pitch to clear a spare ball and quickly vanished down the tunnel at the final whistle after shaking the hand of Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca.
It was all a far cry from the fervour of 20 years ago when Mourinho – having led Porto to an unlikely Champions League triumph – turned Chelsea into English champions for the first time in 50 years in 2005 and won the title again a year later.
After a collapse of form, Mourinho departed in 2007 but he won the Champions League again, this time with Inter Milan in 2010, knocking out the Londoners on the way to the final.
He went on to manage Real Madrid before returning to Chelsea where he claimed a third English title and then had spells at Manchester United, London side Tottenham Hotspur – an unforgivable move for many Chelsea fans at the time – and Roma.
As the big offers dried up, Mourinho went on to coach Fenerbahce in Turkey where he lasted little more than a year before his return to Portuguese football with Benfica.
Asked after Tuesday’s defeat by Chelsea if he still had the drive of the early days of his career, Mourinho insisted he felt more motivated.
“If I am in a job it’s because I like to put myself on the line every day,” he told reporters. “I am desperate to win the next match.”
Mourinho said he thought Benfica had deserved more from the game. “We started well, we controlled well. I don’t know if I can say big chances but we had chances for sure.”
Chelsea’s Maresca said he was relieved to secure a win – albeit a scrappy one – after two consecutive defeats in the Premier League and a 3-1 loss at Bayern Munich in the his side’s Champions League opener.
“Sometimes you need to learn to win in another way,” he said of Chelsea’s improved defensive performance. “At least we learned how to win a game with a red card.”
Striker Joao Pedro was dismissed for a second yellow card after coming on as a substitute, the third time in four matches that Chelsea have finished with 10 men
-Reuters
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Hosts Eintracht Frankfurt scored four times in 29 minutes to bounce back from a goal down and hammer Galatasaray 5-1 in their Champions League opener on Thursday.
The Turkish sides are without their talismanic striker, Victor Osimhen who was injured while on international duty with Nigeria.
The Turks had hit Frankfurt on the break with Yunus Akgun completing the move from a Leroy Sane assist in the eighth minute. Germany international Sane, who joined from Bayern Munich this season, became the only player in Champions League history to play for four or more clubs and score or assist on his debut for each of them.
Frankfurt, competing for only the second time in the Champions League main round, struggled to break through Galatasaray’s defence until a defensive error from Akgun in the 37th. Ritsu Doan pounced, charged into the box and Davinson Sanchez deflected the Japanese winger’s shot in for an own goal.
The hosts took the lead in first-half stoppage time when 19-year-old Turkey international Can Uzun scored a superb goal on his Champions League debut after fine control and a quick turn in the box. The hosts netted again before halftime with Jonathan Burkardt’s well-timed glancing header putting them 3-1 up.
With the visitors forced to take more risks after the break, Frankfurt found space and Burkardt completed his dream Champions League debut with another header in the 66th for his second goal of the evening. Ansgar Knauff completed the rout in the 75th.
Frankfurt next travel to Atletico Madrid on September 30 when Galatasaray host Liverpool.
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