The UEFA Champions League returned on Tuesday immediately providing us with great goals, saves, and drama. When the dust settled and the final whistles were all blown, there were really no surprises. Barcelona and Bayern Munich both blew out inferior opposition at home, while not surprisingly PSG vs Arenal and Atletico vs PSV Eindhoven provided us with the most competitive games amongst the big teams.
1) Biggest winner – Arsenal and Leo Messi
Tuesday’s slate featured almost all the big teams getting to take on some of their weaker opponents to start the group stage but not Arsenal. The North London club drew a road game with the other behemoth in Group A, PSG. Arsenal were not expected to win this game, and optimism was low amongst fans after seeing Arsene Wenger’s starting XI. It got even lower when Arsenal went behind after just 42 seconds. But thanks to some great goalkeeping by David Ospina and an Alexis Sanchez equalizer, Arsenal were able to leave their toughest away match with a point.
Meanwhile in Barcelona Leo Messi scored more goals, three of them to be exact. It’s his sixth career Champions League hat-trick, the most in the history of the competition.
2) Standout performer – David Ospina (Arsenal)
Arsenal fans were not happy when they saw David Ospina’s name on the team sheet instead of Petr Cech’s prior to kickoff. It got even worse when PSG went ahead after just 42 seconds and suddenly Arsenal fans were preparing for the worst. But Ospina then settled in and started making save after save after save to keep Arsenal in the match. Ospina locked things down over the final 89 minutes and is probably the biggest reason Arsenal will be returning to London with a point.
3) Biggest loser – Napoli
Napoli are the losers in terms of they are just getting no love from fans and pundits alike. It seems like everyone has forgotten about them now that Higuain has left them. People were even picking them to finish third in this tougher-then-it-looks group. Tuesday they made a tough trip to the Ukraine and got a 2-1 win over Dynamo Kiev. That is by no means an easy win. Let’s start giving the Italians some love.
4) Best tweet
When you haven't even played 1 minute and you're already losing. #UCL pic.twitter.com/vP9n3wN5y0
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) September 13, 2016
This is what happens when you concede a goal 42 seconds into your Champions League campaign.
5) Biggest surprise – Barcelona were not the first team to score
Almost everyone knew that Barcelona would blow the doors off of Celtic at home, which they did 7-0. Leo Messi got things started less then three minutes into the game, the only thing that was surprising was that Barcelona weren’t the first team to score on the day. That honor belonged to PSG when Edison Cavani scored 42 seconds into their match.
6) Worst moment – Borussia Monchengladbach and Manchester City getting postponed due to rain
Rain in Manchester, who would have seen that coming? But seriously this rain was a torrential downpour even by Manchester standards. What’s most unfortunate is the legion of traveling fans from Germany who spent money and either won’t get to see a match, or will have to pay even more money for hotels to stay in Manchester overnight.
7) Best goal – Andres Iniesta and Messi (Barcelona)
I couldn’t decide between Messi’s brilliant one-two passing with Neymar, or Iniesta’s incredible finish so we’ll just throw them both in here.
And let’s not forget this little piece of magic Saul gave us for Atletico Madrid.
He scored the goal of the #UCL last season, and Saul Niguez is at it again for Atletico Madrid. #UCLonFOX https://t.co/wRRjTwVYnd
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) September 13, 2016
8) Extra time
Ultimately match-day 1 gave us exactly what we expected. Barcelona defeated Celtic 7–0 while Bayern Munich gave Rostov a rude ‘welcome to the Champions League’ with a 5-0 win. Amongst the big teams many people expected Atletico Madrid to pull out a close one over PSV Eindhoven, which they did while Arsenal and PSG was always the game with the biggest question marks. It was disappointing to see Arsene Wenger not start Granit Xhaka, since this was the exact kind of game that Arsenal bought him for, but his, along with Olivier Giroud’s, introduction in the second half allowed Arsenal to turn the game around and escape Paris with a point.
