There were a lot of exciting Champions
League matches this week, so without a long intro, I'm just going to
jump into it.
In Tuesday's games, groups E, F, G and
H competed. First up is Juventus vs. Shakhtar Donestsk. After a
quarter of the match was gone, Alex Teixeira of Shakhtar put one past
the World Class Buffon. As Juve fans became nervous, Leonardo
Bonnucci gave the Ukrainians a piece of their
own medicine by equalizing just two minutes later. The game ended a
1-1 tie. Also in Group E, FC Nordsjælland
hosted champions of Europe, Chelsea FC. Most assumed the blues would
conquer this match but no one expected their Danish counter parts to
put up such a fight. Juan Mata scored the first of the match after
receiving the pass from Frank Lampard in the 33rd
minute. Up until the end of the match it really was anyone's game as
the Danish side were only down by one. That is until the 79th
minute when David Luiz smashed a free kick to the near post resulting
in it bouncing across goal and in. Then just a few minutes later,
Juan Mata grabbed his second, once again with the assist going to
Franky Lampard. Ramires topped of the score sheet making it 4-0 to
Chelsea with the assist going to the fellow Brazilian, Oscar. In
Group F, Valencia hosted French side Lille and put them to rest with
their Brazilian number 7, Jonas. Late in the first half (38 min)
Roberto Soldado fed him the pass which Jonas converted. 30 minutes
into the second half, Jonas put away his second and the Spanish side
went on to take the three points. Also in Group F, BATE Borisov
hosted Bayern Munich in Belarus. Munich being a very dominant squad
in Germany as well as the rest of Europe, it looked like it was gonna
be an easy 3 points. Nobody expected to see Borisov go up after just
23 minutes. They waited until the 78th
minute to score yet again. Then in the 90th
minute, they made it 3-0. Franck Ribéry then got a consolation goal
in stoppage time and the match ended 3-1 in favor of the Belarus
giants. Spartak Moscow hosted Celtic in group G and the Scottish side
took the lead through Gary Hooper after just 13 minutes. Waiting for
halftime to come as fast as possible, the Scots let up their defense
and the team hailing from Moscow equalized through Emmanuel Emenike.
3 minutes into the second half, Emenike scored again stealing the
lead once 1-0 lead from Celtic. In the 63rd
minute, Juan Manuel Insaurralde of Moscow was sent off with a red
card. 8 minutes later, Kombarov put in and own goal and equalized the
score line at 2-2. Celtic weren't finished though, in the dieing
seconds, Samaras scored a dream winner and once again Spartak Moscow
were crushed like when Messi had two late goals in Gameweek 1.
Speaking of Messi & Barcelona, they visited Benfica in Portugal.
It only took 6 minutes for Messi to work his magic and produce the
assist for Alexis Sanchez. In the 55th
minute, Messi did it again, this time for Cesc Fabregas. Other than
that, Sergio Busquests was red carded in the 88th
minute. In the last group, H, Romanian side CFR Cluj hosted
Manchester United and after a poor last season, United couldn't let
any points slip. It only took 14 minutes to break the nil-nil
scoreline and it went to Pantelis Kapetanos of Cluj. With this
reality check United turned things around with a free kick from Wayne
Rooney. He sent in a cross and Robin van Persie put it in with a
header. Its true that the header was a bit lucky, but you could see
that they were bound to score soon if not at that moment. As for the
second half, it was debatably the best performance United put on all
season. The Flying Dutch put away his second and the match ended 2-1
in United's favor. The last Tuesday match up was Galatasaray vs
Braga. After only losing 1-0 to Man Utd, many thought Galatasaray
would take the points, but this wasn’t the case. With goals from
Ruben Mical and Alan, Braga took the points in a 2-0 win.
As
for Wednesday’s matches, Groups A, B, C and D battled it out.
Dynamo Kiev took on Dinamo Zagreb. In just 3 minutes, Oleg Gusev put
Kiev in front. Jump forward 30 minutes and Josip Pivaric put in an
own goal and Kiev took the 3 points. Next was Porto hosting PSG.
Pretty action-less game until the 83rd
minute, when James Rodriguez scored for Porto and sent PSG home.
Schalke 04 and Montpellier. The French side opened scoring in just 13
minutes. Double that time and Schalke equalized. In the 52nd
minute, Garry Bocaly got the red and Schalke got the Penalty. Klass
Jan Huntelaar. As the match was coming to a close, the German side
were feeling like they were taking the points, but Souleymane Camara
equalized in the 90th
minute, ending the match in a 2-2 tie. Also in group B, Arsenal
hosted Olympiakos. A slow start to the first half led to an very
interesting end to it. 42nd
minute, Gervinho put the gunners in front with the help of Mikel
Arteta. 3 minutes later, Konstantinos Mitroglou equalized right
before halftime. Early in the second halftime, Lukas Podolski blasted
the gooners back in front and to top it off, Aaron Ramsey scored in
the last minute. The early match of the day was Zenit St. Petersburg
vs. AC Milan. After just 16 minute, Milan was up 2-0. Zenit looked
defeated until Hulk scored one in the last minute of the first half.
4 minutes into the second Roman Shirokov equalized and the Rossoneri
didn't look like themselves. In the 75th
minute, AC Milan lucked out when Tomas Hubocan put it into his own
net. The Italian giants stole the three points. The other Group C
match up was Anderlecht and Malaga. The spanish side completely
dominated the scoreline but not the match. Eliseu scored in the last
minute of the first half and shortly after the second half started,
Joaquin put home a penalty. In the 64th
minute, Eliseu finished off scored but tucking away his second.
The
last group of the day, D, deserves a paragraph for itself. The Group
of Death had Manchester City against Borussia Dortmund and Real
Madrid against Ajax. The Manchester/dortmund match was scoreless for
a long time but wasn't a boring match. It took 61 minutes for a
breakthrough and it went to Marco Reus of Dortmund. The match was
coming to an end and in the dieing moments, Sergio Aguero was sliced
down in the box and the PK was given. Mario Balotelli would be the
only one to take it. Slow and cool, he tucked the close range dead
ball into the bottom corner and chased the ball into the goal to pick
it up. On his way out he told the GK to keep talking with a lovely
hand gesture. The other matchup started just as slow taking 42
minutes for a breakthrough. Even though it took so long, Madrid was
very dominant. The only thing keeping Ajax in the game was Kenneth
Vermeer, their goalkeeper. The goal started with Karim Benzema
cutting the ball in and sending in a low cross. Taking a deflection,
Kenneth Vermeer was left laying on the ground and the ball was left
for Cristiano Ronaldo to pounce, and that he did. It was one of
Kaka's first appearances and he put on one of his best performances
for Madrid. Three minutes into the second half, Karim Benzema scored
a brilliant scissor kick. It looked like there was no was back for
the Dutch side, but when Christian Eriksen sent in a corner, Niklas
Moisander beat Iker Casillas and made it 2-1. Ronaldo would not have
this, working with Benzema on the left wing the duo traveled towards
goal and the Frenchman set up Ronaldo for the shot at the top of the
box. Who thought you could blast the ball and still have accuracy?
Ronaldo did, and broke down Ajax's comeback, especially because two
minutes later he completed his hat-trick. The game ended 4-1 in Los
Blancos' favor.
The
Player of the week goes to Ronaldo, putting on a fantastic
performance, but two of his Madrid teammates were close behind him,
Kaka and Benzema. This was Ronaldo's second hat-trick in two games
and now has completed 18 career hat-tricks, this being his first in
the Champions League. The Portuguese superstar has racked up 158
goals in 154 Real Madrid games. Well that is all I have for y'all.
Until next time...
-JoeyB
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