The opening round of the Champions League league phase delivered the full spectrum of drama, from historic firsts to breathless comebacks. Fourteen teams claimed victories across the exclusive match week, and every club left its mark in the numbers.
Belgian champions Union Saint Gilloise authored the headline upset with a superb 3–1 triumph at PSV. Promise David’s ninth-minute penalty was the first goal of the competition’s main rounds this season, and it extended Union’s remarkable run of away success in the Netherlands after wins at Ajax and Twente last term. Athletic Bilbao’s long-awaited return ended in frustration as Arsenal won 2–0 in the Basque Country, the fourth time Athletic have failed to score at home in the Champions League proper and a reminder of their struggles to progress at this level. Qarabag produced the comeback of the week, overturning a two-goal deficit to beat Benfica 3–2 in Lisbon for their first victory at this stage. Counting qualifiers, the Azeri champions have now scored eighteen times in this season’s competition, more than anyone else.
In Turin, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund shared an instant classic, with all eight goals scored after the interval, resulting in a 4–4 draw. It was only the second draw in eleven UEFA meetings between the pair and evoked memories of 13 September 2000, when Hamburg and Juventus also finished 4–4 and both Igor Tudor and Niko Kovac found the net. Real Madrid needed two Kylian Mbappe penalties to edge Olympique Marseille 2–1 despite finishing with ten men, preserving their perfect head-to-head while consigning Marseille to a tenth defeat against Spanish opposition. Tottenham marked their return with a 1–0 win over Villarreal courtesy of an early own goal by Luiz Junior, taking Spurs to sixteen wins from twenty-seven home games in the Champions League proper across seven campaigns.
Slavia Praha were minutes from a first victory in the main rounds for eighteen years before Bodo Glimt levelled late in a 2–2 draw, extending Slavia’s winless streak in UEFA competition to eight matches. Olympiakos could not make an hour of numerical advantage count in a goalless draw with debutants Paphos. The Cypriots have now kept three away clean sheets in this Champions League season, including qualifiers, while Olympiakos have been shut out five times since the start of last term.
Inter Milan looked at ease in the new format with a controlled 2–0 win at Ajax, giving the Nerazzurri nine clean sheets in the Champions League since the league phase was introduced. Bayern Munich continued their tradition of fast starts with a 3–1 victory over Chelsea, making it seventeen successive seasons that Bayern have opened a Champions League campaign with a win and ending the Blues’ six-game European away streak. Liverpool and Atletico Madrid delivered a roller coaster as the Reds raced two up inside ten minutes, fell 3–2 behind late on, and then won it in added time through Virgil van Dijk. Treated as the ninetieth minute, Liverpool’s first and last goals were eighty-six minutes apart.
Paris Saint-Germain ruthlessly began their title defence, sweeping aside Atalanta 4–0 for the joint-heaviest win of match day one. Across Atalanta’s six European games against French clubs, they have conceded eight goals, six of them to Paris Saint-Germain. Thursday brought a wave of emphatic home displays. Club Brugge blitzed Monaco 4–1 with three goals in ten minutes of the first half, and Monaco are now winless in four European away matches, conceding thirteen in that sequence and at least three in each outing. FC København drew 2–2 with Bayer Leverkusen after a ninety-first-minute own goal denied them a second straight scalp against German opposition. Even so, they have scored eleven times across four European fixtures at Parken this season, with Leverkusen the only visitors to avoid defeat. Galatasaray endured a chastening 5–1 loss at Eintracht Frankfurt, their twenty-third consecutive European match without a clean sheet.
Manchester City eased past ten-man Napoli 2–0, Erling Haaland marking his fiftieth goal in the competition and extending City’s unbeaten home run in the league phase or former group stage to twenty-two matches across seven years. The result also registered Antonio Conte’s fourteenth defeat as a manager in the Champions League, a tournament that has proved less forgiving than his domestic campaigns. Barcelona prevailed 2–1 at Newcastle for a fourth straight head-to-head win over the Magpies. It was their thirty-ninth victory in seventy-nine European meetings with Premier League opposition, and summer signing Marcus Rashford struck twice in nine minutes to settle it. Sporting CP closed the week with a 4–1 dismissal of Kairat Almaty, leaving the Kazakh champions winless after seven group phase matches in UEFA competition with fifteen goals conceded in that stretch.
If this is the new normal for the league phase, match day one has set a formidable bar. From debut joy and late heartache to records extended and reputations enhanced, the numbers tell a story that is already racing ahead to match day two.
