Champions League Wednesday: Prince William watches Aston Villa, Real Madrid suffer shock defeat

CNN
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A famous victory celebrated by royalty, a surprise defeat for the reigning champions and a brilliant goal by Mohamed Salah were among the highlights of a thrilling evening of European football on Wednesday.

The second round of matches in this season’s Champions League is coming to an end. Seven teams boast excellent results, and several of the favorites are in a more uncertain situation ahead of the competition.

Here’s a roundup of the latest action in Europe.

Aston Villa fan Prince William was in the stands to celebrate his team’s memorable victory over Bayern Munich.

Jhon Durán’s superb second-half lob secured a 1-0 victory for Villa, who played their first home game in Europe’s elite club competition for 41 years. It sparked comparisons to Villa’s victory over Bayern by the same scoreline in the 1982 European Cup final, which remains one of the greatest days in the club’s history.

With 70% of the ball possession, the German giants controlled most of the match, but ultimately ran out of advantage at a bustling Villa Park.

After Pau Torres’ first-half strike was ruled out for offside in the build-up, the hosts had to wait until the 79th minute to score the all-important goal when substitute Durán fired a shot over Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

There were even more heroics for Villa when Emi Martínez made two saves in stoppage time, denying Serge Gnabry and Harry Kane.

“I’m very happy that our fans and everyone at Aston Villa – coaches, owners, fans, staff – can share days like today, play at this level in the Champions League against Bayern Munich and win,” said Villa manager Unai Emery .

“The most important thing is how we competed and how we prepared the game plan, how we transmitted our energy to the fans and their energy to us.”

The surprise result means Villa have picked up two wins in their first two Champions League games, while Bayern had to face reality after an emphatic 9-2 victory over Dinamo Zagreb two weeks ago.

A night after some of the biggest names in the competition – the likes of Manchester City, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund – scored freely, it was a timely reminder that the Champions League can still deliver drama and upsets, and that it may be too early to call it quits. is to say that the newly renewed tournament is not as good as the previous one.

Bayern wasn’t the only team to disappoint on Wednesday. 15-time Champions League winners Real Madrid suffered their first defeat of the season, losing 1-0 to Lille in an early setback in their defense of their European title.

Eduardo Camavinga’s handball late in the first half allowed Jonathan David to convert a penalty shortly after it was stopped by a superb double save from substitute goalkeeper Andriy Lunin.

Madrid’s best chances fell in the second half when Tiago Santos cleared the ball from Antonio Rüdiger on the goal line and Lucas Chevalier then deflected another shot from Jude Bellingham.

The goalkeeper denied headers to Rüdiger and Turkish wonderkid Arda Güler later in the match Les Doguesbeaten twice this season in the French Ligue 1 and beaten 2-0 by Sporting CP in the first leg of the Champions League, they held on to claim a remarkable victory.

“We had difficulty getting into the game and fighting,” said Real manager Carlo Ancelotti.

We could have drawn and had our chances at the end, but we didn’t deserve to win. We need to learn and know what we need to improve, just like the last defeat. I don’t think it’s too difficult.”

Less surprising was Liverpool’s 2-0 victory over Bologna, the Reds’ second win in the competition against an Italian opponent, after beating AC Milan 3-1 in the first round.

Two minutes after Bologna’s early shot was ruled out for offside, Alexis Mac Allister put Liverpool ahead with his first goal of the season, slotting a dangerous Salah ball into the box.

Dan Ndoye saw his shot rebound off the crossbar as the visitors looked for an equalizer in an open first half, and the striker then hit the post a few minutes later.

The highlight of the match, however, was a brilliant second-half goal by Salah, who cut into his left foot and fired a shot into the top corner.

With this, Salah extended his home goalscoring streak in the Champions League to five matches – becoming the first player in the club’s history to achieve this feat.

Meanwhile, Arne Slot became the first Liverpool manager to win eight of his first nine games, leading all competitions.

“It wasn’t an easy situation, but that’s normal, if you play in the Champions League, there is always a lot of resistance and there are many good teams in the Champions League and Bologna is one of them,” Slot told reporters after the game.

“You could also see (other) results tonight where we saw maybe some surprising results. It was nice to win, keep a clean sheet, some good individual performances, overall positive.

In perhaps the most exciting match of the evening, Juventus came from behind to beat RB Leipzig 3-2, despite goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio being sent off in the second half.

Dušan Vlahović equalized for Juve after a shot by Benjamin Šeško, but the match turned in Leipzig’s favor when Di Gregorio was shown a red card for handling the ball outside the penalty area.

Another handball decision – this time with Douglas Luiz blocking a free kick – allowed Šeško to score a second goal from the penalty spot, and from that point on it looked like the hosts would see victory.

But Vecchia SignoraUndeterred by being reduced to 10 men, he counter-attacked brilliantly, first to a great shot from outside the box by Vlahovic and then to a great shot from outside the box by Francisco Conceição, who showed incredible individual skill to avoid a challenge from David Raum and slot the ball into the net. .

“We showed that we are becoming a team, we fought together as the coach asked us, we deservedly won despite the suffering caused by the loss of a player,” Vlahović said later. “It was a great performance. We have to get used to this level, these victories and these matches. We must continue with even greater conviction.”

Home vs. away (winners in bold)

RB Salzburg 0:4 Brest

Stuttgart 1-1 Sparta Prague

Arsenal 2-0 Paris Saint-Germain

Barcelona 5-0 Young boys

Bayer Leverkusen 1-0 AC Milan

Borussia Dortmund 7-1 Celtic

International 4-0 Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade)

PSV 1-1 Sporting Clube Portugal

Slovan Bratislava 0-4 Manchester City

Shakhtar Donetsk 0-3 Atalanta

Girona 2-3 Feyenoord

Benfica 4-0 Atlético Madrid

Liverpool 2-0 Bologna

RB Leipzig 2-3 Juventus

Lille 1-0 Real Madrid

SK Sturm Graz 0-1 Club Bruges

Aston Villa 1-0 Bayern Munich

Dynamo Zagreb 2-2 AS Monaco