Jürgen Klopp’s FC Liverpool started the Champions League with a debacle. At SSC Naples, the club of the German soccer coach lost 1: 4 (0: 3) on Wednesday.
On the other hand, Robert Lewandowski showed his top class for FC Barcelona in a 5-1 (3-1) win over Viktoria Pilsen with three goals (34th minute/45th+3/67th) before the duel with his former club Bayern Munich next Tuesday .
The Pole scored six, seven and eight goals in his fifth competitive game for FC Barcelona and confirmed his top form. Franck Kessié (13th) and Ferran Torres (71st) scored the other Barça goals.
Drama in Madrid
Klopp’s Liverpool started even worse in the Champions League after a mixed start to the season in the English Premier League. Napoli surprised the Reds with a lot of offensive power. Piotr Zielinski converted a hand penalty (5th). The former Wolfsburg Victor Osimhen even missed a penalty kick (18th). André-Frank Zambo Anguissa (31st), Giovanni Simeone (44th) and again Zielinski (47th) increased to 4:0. Luis Díaz was only able to reduce the deficit to 1:4 (49th).
Tottenham Hotspur had big problems for a long time with Olympique Marseille, next Tuesday’s opponents of Eintracht Frankfurt, despite being outnumbered (red card for Chancel Mbemba/47.) and came through Richarlison (76./81.) to make it 2-0 (0 :0).
Leverkusen’s next opponent Atletico Madrid came in the 11th minute of stoppage time through Antoine Griezmann to a 2-1 (0-0) against FC Porto. Mario Hermoso (90 + 1) was only successful for the Spaniards, but a short time later played the ball with his hand in his own penalty area. Mateus Uribe sunk the penalty due (90+6). Then came the great performance of world champion Griezmann.
Ajax dismantles Rangers
Despite the numerous departures of top players, Ajax Amsterdam started the Champions League with a sovereign success. The Dutch champions beat Glasgow Rangers 4-0 (3-0) in Group A on Wednesday.
Edson Álvarez gave Ajax the lead (17th minute). Steven Berghuis and Mohammed Kudus made it 3-0 within two minutes (32’/33′). Steven Bergwijn made it 4-0 with ten minutes remaining. The other opponents in Group A are Liverpool FC and SSC Napoli.
Well-known professionals left the Dutch record champions for a total of more than 210 million euros in the summer. Antony (around 95 million euros) and Lisandro Martinez (almost 58 million euros) moved to Manchester United. Sébastien Haller (31 million/Borussia Dortmund) and Ryan Gravenberch (18.5 million/FC Bayern Munich) went to the Bundesliga. For the weak Europa League finalists from Glasgow it was the next bitter disappointment after the 0: 4 derby defeat at Celtic Glasgow on Saturday.
