Bayern Munich crush Atletico Madrid
The buildup was overshadowed by Serge Gnabry testing positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday after he had taken part in the team's final training session for the game.
Munich: Bayern Munich picked up where it left off in the Champions League, starting their title defence with a 4-0 rout of Atlético Madrid after overcoming the club’s first coronavirus case.
Kingsley Coman netted twice as Bayern took its winning streak to 12 straight games in Europe’s premier competition, with Leon Goretzka and Corentin Tolisso also scoring on Wednesday.
The buildup was overshadowed by Serge Gnabry testing positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday after he had taken part in the team’s final training session for the game.
In Milan, Romelu Lukaku scored a late equalizer with his second goal of the game to give a coronavirus-affected Inter Milan team a 2-2 draw against Borussia Mönchengladbach in their Champions League opener.
Ramy Bensebaini converted a penalty for Gladbach and Jonas Hofmann also scored for the German side before Lukaku’s last-minute equalizer on Wednesday. In the other Group B match, Real Madrid fell to a surprising 3-2 loss at home to Shakhtar Donetsk. In Milan, it was the first match between the former heavyweights in more than 40 years.
Ahmed Hassan came off the bench to score an injury-time goal for Olympiakos in a 1-0 win over Marseille in Piraeus (Greece).
The Egyptian delivered a powerful header to beat goalkeeper Steve Mandanda after Mathieu Valbuena’s cross. The Greek champions held the initiative for most of the match at Giorgos Karaiskakis stadium on Wednesday and had a goal disallowed by video review after Giorgos Masouras had found the net in the 52nd minute.
Lacking its typical fluency going forward, Manchester City relied on moments of individual brilliance to get their campaign off to a winning start.
City recovered from conceding an early goal to beat Porto 3-1 in their Group C opener, with a curling free kick from Ilkay Gundogan and an impressive individual strike by substitute Ferran Torres completing the second-half comeback at an empty Etihad Stadium. “It is nice to win games suffering,” City manager Pep Guardiola said. With long-time playmaker David Silva now departed, star midfielder Kevin De Bruyne out injured and players like Gundogan and Sergio Aguero — the scorer of the equalizer from the penalty spot — feeling their way back to full fitness, it hasn’t been the fluid City of old since the start of the season.
Real Madrid fell 3-2 to Shakhtar Donetsk, who had 10 first team players and nine staff missing due to coronavirus infections.
Just as Cadiz had waltzed almost at will through the same Madrid defence that conceded only 25 league goals last season, Shakhtar wreaked havoc in Zinedine Zidane’s back-line and on another night would have scored more.
