BENGALURU - Barcelona suffered a 2-0 loss to Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in their second Group C Champions League match. Barca were the better team for most of the night and should have gotten a lot more from the game.
Lucas Hernández opened the scoring against a run of play in the 50th minute before Leroy Sané ran through the entire Barca defense and passed the ball into the net four minutes later. The visitors tried to recover but were made to rue all the better opportunities they missed in the first half.
Another Spanish giant Atletico Madrid also suffered a defeat in Germany after losing to 2-0 to Bayer Leverkusen in Group B. The teams were tied at goalless until the 84th minute when Bayer scored twice to win the match in the final stretch. Robert Andrich got the opener before Moussa Diaby sealed the victory three minutes later. The other major talking point of the game was a handball in the box by Edmond Tapsoba, which was not given by the referee on review. Club Brugge pulled off a shock 4-0 win at FC Porto to win a second successive Champions League Group B game and go top of the standings.
Liverpool left it late to beat Ajax 2-1 in their Champions League Group A match. The Reds took the lead through Mohamed Salah in the 17th minute but Mohammed Kudus cancelled out the opener ten minutes later. As the match was seemingly heading for a draw, Joel Matip rose to head home with a minute remaining on the clock. Diogo Jota was lively up front in his first start of the season, while Thiago helped the team rediscover a little of the rhythm that has been missing in the recent games. However, the right flank was, again, the Reds’ weekest defensive link with Kudus’ equaliser coming from that side.
Earlier, Tottenham crashed to a 0-2 defeat to Sporting CP as a stunning late show condemned them in Lisbon. Spurs had produced a largely uninspiring performance at Estadio Jose Alvalade and appeared happy to settle for a share of the spoils. But there was a twist in the tale in the closing stages when Paulinho turned home a corner at the near post in the 90th minute. Sporting then made sure of the points in the third and final minute of injury time as Arthur doubled their tally with a superb individual effort on his debut.
Edin Dzeko and Denzel Dumfries guided Inter to a much-needed 2-0 win over 10-man Viktoria Plzen, kick-starting the Nerazzurri’s Champions League campaign. Defeat to Bayern Munich last week meant Inter needed to respond in the Czech Republic, and they never looked likely to drop points after Dzeko swept home in the first half. Meanwhile, Eintracht Frankfurt beat Marseille 1-0.
results
Bayern 2-0 Barcelona
Marseille 0-1 Frankfurt
Liverpool 2-1 Ajax
Leverkusen 2-0 Atletico
Porto 0-4 lub Brugge
Inter 0-2 Viktoria Plzen
Sporting 2-0 Tottenham