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Cristiano Ronaldo took advantage of a winning return to Old Trafford on Tuesday as Juventus defeated Manchester United 1-0 on Matchday 3 of the Champions League. This puts pressure on Man United manager Jose Mourinho once again, but the other two elite club coaches seem to be about to recover, Niko Kovac of Bayern Munich and Julen Lopetegui of Real Madrid have both won victories.
Paulo Dybala scored the only goal for Juventus, who won 1-0 and leads Group H by five points after three games. United remain second after Valencia had a 1-1 draw against Young Boys. Michy Batshuayi gave the advantage to Valencia, but Guillaume Hoarau equalized in the 10th minute.
Javi Martinez scored two goals in the second half and Robert Lewandowski gave Bayern a 2-0 victory over the stubborn AEK Athens club. He is tied for the Group E lead with Ajax, who beat Benfica 1-0 with one last goal. -minute goal of Noussair Mazraoui.
In Madrid, Karim Benzema led the group after nine minutes and Marcelo scored a second to allow Real Madrid to beat Viktoria Plzen 2-1, breaking the club's five-game no-win streak and offering a multi-goal performance for the first time since. September 19th. Patrik Hrosovsky's goal in the 79th minute provoked some nervousness, and the question of Lopetegui's future will seem much clearer after the Clasico this weekend in Barcelona. Roma dominate this group on goal difference, with Edin Dzeko scoring two goals in a 3-0 win over CSKA Moscow.
Elsewhere, Manchester City confirmed its recent form by defeating Shakhtar Donetsk 3-0 in Ukraine to lead the group, while Joelinton's goal in the match-repair earned Hoffenheim a 3-3 draw against Lyon.
Here are three thoughts on the day in the Champions League:
The pressure rises again on Mourinho
A win over Newcastle United and a draw against Chelsea had silenced the thought that the bag was imminent for Jose Mourinho, but the weather came back after a 1-0 defeat by Juventus, who dominated the first three quarters of the game, sometimes to an almost embarrassing degree.
Mourinho, who had decided to walk to Old Trafford after the team bus was again stuck in traffic, chose a camp unchanged for the first time in 46 games, but his group was still as disjointed. The defensive tremor that has characterized United throughout the season has been highlighted again, with Juventus taking a 17-minute lead. Juve's movement on the right was smooth, but when Chris Smalling approached Ronaldo's deflected center in front of Juan Cuadrado, the lost ball fell on Paulo Dybala, who did not score the mark, who swept the ball. Neither Nemanja Matic nor Victor Lindelof had followed his race. was a recurring feature of the first half.
With United seated, as he has often done this season, Juve dominated the ball to such an extent that at halftime, United only had 29% of ball possession. Rodrigo Bentancur was the dominant figure at the back of the midfield and, except that David De Gea had been saved by two prestigious defeats – the first on a Joao Cancelo blast, the second and even better to deny Ronaldo – Juve would have been comfortably in advance.
It was only in the last half hour, when United was forced to attack, that the impulse began to change and that Paul Pogba nearly equalized the hosts, hitting the pole on a distant pole with 15 minutes to play. But it was the third consecutive game in which the need to continue the game raised the level of Man United. Juve, however, had the means to stifle the wave and stay perfect in the group.
A relief for Kovac, Bayern
It's a crisis at least delayed for Niko Kovac. The Bayern coach was under intense pressure after four consecutive winless matches, a race that sparked last week's extraordinary press conference during which directors Uli Hoeness, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Hasan Salihamidzic criticized the media for criticizing the eternal champions.
It was obviously absurd, a little disturbing in his attempt to quell dissent and, as Hoeness blasted Juan Bernat, sold to Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, monstrously hypocritical. But if the goal was to divert attention from specific problems within the camp, it worked. As media attention turned less and less on Bayern's hierarchy, the team won 3-1 at Wolfsburg on Saturday. She then beat AEK Athens 2-0.
That leaves Bayern tied with Ajax at the top of the group, but you have to resist any feeling of suddenly that everything is fine. Although the victory was quite comfortable in the end and the goals of Javi Martinez and Robert Lewandowski followed one another in the second half, it was far from an impressive performance of Bayern against a team of AEK lively but limited. There was a lack of wit and verve, a lack of self-confidence that resulted in too many passes safely, and perhaps most disturbingly, a fundamental lack of pace.
A breeze for Man City
Manchester City started the season a little slowly (according to its own extraordinary criteria), leading some to question whether Pep Guardiola's much-discussed efforts to add an extra dimension to his disappearance had been truly disruptive. Last month, however, showed the benefits of this work. Shakhtar were the first team to beat City last season – even though the match is dead – but City was magnificent in Ukraine, dominating while playing football.
David Silva opened the scoring in City half an hour later, Aymeric Laporte headed in a corner five minutes later and Bernardo Silva added a third third about 30 seconds after coming off the bench. The defeat against Lyon in the first day is not forgotten, but it seems less and less likely that Man City reaches the last 16 games. If City and Lyon both win their next match, City will have ensured its place in the round of 16. phase without two remaining games.
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