Champions League Briefing: Does this make Amorim the new Fergie? Why did Vinicius Jr stand still?

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Just when you thought the group stage was becoming predictable…

Manchester City and Real Madrid, the two teams mostly likely to win this season’s Champions League, took two beatings on Tuesday night to shake the competition up.

New Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim quite possibly saved his very best for last at Sporting, signing off from his final home game with a famous 4-1 victory, while over in the Spanish capital, AC Milan added to Madrid’s many problems with a massive 3-1 victory.

The third most likely team to win the 2024-25 Champions League? Liverpool. And they brushed aside Bayer Leverkusen and Xabi Alonso 4-0 at Anfield to reinforce their credentials.

These are the big talking points from Tuesday’s action…

Does this make Amorim the new Fergie? 

“If we win they’ll think the new Alex Ferguson has arrived, which is very difficult to maintain.”

Arise Sir Ruben. The new Fergie’s words, spoken on the eve of his final home match in charge of Sporting, feel pretty pertinent don’t they?

Manchester United are now favourites for the 2025-26 Premier League title and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City dynasty is about to come crumbling down.

Okay, fine, let’s just all calm down a bit. But also, let’s get massively carried away with this remarkable result.

Two years ago Manchester City blitzed the Portuguese team 5-0 on aggregate in the Champions League last 16, but here they showcased just why United were so keen to land Amorim after his team walloped Guardiola’s shellshocked side.

It must have been an incredibly bittersweet night for Sporting’s fans, who celebrated one of the best victories in the club’s recent history in the knowledge that they may not see the like again for a while. They said goodbye with a huge tifo which read ‘Obrigada’ (thank you) and he returned the favour with a night to remember forever.

In the battle of the Nordic goal-loving strikers, the clear winner was Viktor Gyokeres, whose hat-trick took his tally to 23 goals in 15 matches for club and country this season. He has only failed to score in two games.


(Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)

Amorim will surely want to take Gyokeres with him to Old Trafford via that rumoured €100 million release clause, although with Ineos tightening the purse strings perhaps the Etihad, via their soon-to-be director of football Hugo Viana, who leaves Sporting at the end of the season, might be a more likely destination. Gyokeres and Haaland up front together? The nets will need reinforcing.

 

Anyway, the two managers won’t have to wait long for a rematch. And if Amorim can do the same with Rasmus Hojlund or Joshua Zirkzee up front when his new Manchester United team take on City and Guardiola on December 15th, you can make plans for the statue already.

Inconsistent Milan turn it on at the Bernabeu

AC Milan’s 3-1 victory in the Bernabeu was equally as surprising and stunning as Sporting’s win.

Milan can be infuriatingly inconsistent – they’re a lowly seventh in Serie A, already eight points off leaders Napoli albeit with a game in hand, while they lost their first two Champions League matches (to Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen) before struggling past 10-man Club Bruges to claim their first victory on Matchday 3.

Here, though, they were at their very best, and uncoincidentally so were Rafael Leao and Theo Hernandez, who on their day must be one of the most exciting left-sided pairs in European football.

Newish manager Paulo Fonseca boldly dropped both of them earlier in the season and Leao has been left on the bench in the league lately, but as Alvaro Morata told The Athletic last week: “He’s the best player on the team and just needs to keep doing what he’s doing.”

Talking of Morata, it was the Spaniard who restored Milan’s lead when putting them 2-1 up after Leao’s shot was saved. And then Leao set up Dutch midfielder Tijjani Reijnders, who had scored twice against Bruges last time out, to seal a memorable victory in this clash of European football giants.


(Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

With AC Milan now facing Slovan Bratislava, Red Star Belgrade, Girona and Dinamo Zagreb in their final four matches, the path of progression to the last 16 via an automatic qualification spot should be straightforward.

But only if they can find that elusive consistency.

Noel Gallagher was City’s best performer on the night

If you thought TNT Sports were dumbing down their coverage even more by inviting Oasis legend Noel Gallagher into the commentary box for City’s game at Sporting… well, you’d be wrong.

In what probably says far more about the standard of punditry on English football screens, Gallagher was actually a breath of fresh air in that he… spoke common sense. Yes, it’s a wacky concept, stick with us.

Sure, he said ‘we’ when talking about his beloved City, but this was no Sky Sports Fan Zone-style gimmick, nor was he overly biased (he thought the decision to award City a penalty for handball was harsh and questioned things like bringing Kevin De Bruyne on for the final seven minutes, probably fearing for his hamstrings).

There was no melodrama, or silly noises, or horrible ‘banter’, like you get when certain other pundits commentate or talk about the teams they support.

But then Gallagher is an actual fan (he was in the away end at Bournemouth on Saturday) and just says things like they are, backed up here by insight and statistics, and even a foreshadowing of City wasting chances and needing to score a second goal, which came 37 seconds before Sporting equalised. It would be easy to ridicule his comments because he’s Noel Gallagher, like comparing Gyokeres’ penalty technique to Troy Deeney’s, until you stop and realise that it’s true.

He did let himself down by saying: “Some songwriting genius wrote once; ‘We see things they’ll never see’, and that’s Guardiola for ya,” leading to raucous laughter from commentator Darren Fletcher. But we’ll forgive him that one.

Anyway, Gallagher’s was probably the best City performance of the night as they suffered a third successive defeat in all competitions for the first time in six-and-a-half years.

They wasted chances in the opening half an hour, only having Phil Foden’s fourth minute goal to show for their dominance, then Haaland blasted a penalty against the bar when he had the chance to pull it back to 3-2.

Injuries are clearly having an impact, particularly in defence with teenager Jahmai Simpson-Pusey making his first senior start at the back, and with 73 per cent possession and 20 shots to nine it’s not as if City were outplayed, far from it.

But they really are missing Rodri, who may become a more deserved winner of the Ballon d’Or in some people’s eyes by virtue of not playing.

Talking of which…

Vinicius Jr stood tall, then stood still

It was a mixed night for Vinicius Junior, who was having a good evening when he levelled things up for Real Madrid with a Panenka penalty, minutes after the Bernabeu had booed the Champions League anthem to express their displeasure at him not winning the Ballon d’Or.

 

Vinicius Jr had won the penalty himself from a foul by former Tottenham Hotspur defender Emerson Royal, but from then on Madrid melted and the sight of Vinicius Jr stood completely still as an Aurelien Tchouameni pass didn’t reach him (seconds later Milan were 2-1 up) was one of the night’s defining images.

So too was Jude Bellingham kicking a water bottle in frustration after being substituted.

This was Madrid’s second defeat of the competition in four games (they also lost 1-0 at Lille) and, coming off the back of the 4-0 humiliation at home to Barcelona in their last league match, it encapsulates a season that is threatening to unravel.

They will surely still reach at least a play-off for the last 16 with ease, but with a trip to Liverpool next on Matchday 5, the usually composed Carlo Ancelotti may have to start sweating a little.

Alonso’s Leverkusen stumbling as Slot’s Liverpool fly

Anfield is not a place you want to have to go and get a result right now.

Liverpool maintained one of only two 100 per cent records in the new Champions League format (the other being *checks notes* Aston Villa, who visit Club Bruges on Wednesday) with a serene 4-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen.

In contrast to Amorim, whose stock is sky high as he prepares to move to the Premier League, Xabi Alonso’s reputation is starting to take a little bit of a hit, just months after he was touted as the best thing since sliced bread but had the gall to resist the temptation of a Premier League move.

Arne Slot got the Liverpool call instead and the above stats reflect yet again how he has got this Liverpool team purring very quickly.

Luis Diaz scored a second half hat-trick including a chip that could only have looked more delicious with a dollop of mayonnaise on the end.

 

Slot and Liverpool are absolutely flying, top of the Premier League and top of the Champions League. Alonso and Leverkusen were never going to reach the impeccable heights of 2023-24, but the difficult second season syndrome is kicking in.

Tuesday’s results

  • PSV 4 Girona 0
  • Slovan Bratislava 1 Dinamo Zagreb
  • Bologna 0 Monaco 1
  • Borussia Dortmund 1 Sturm Graz 0
  • Celtic 3 RB Leipzig 1
  • Lille 1 Juventus 1
  • Liverpool 4 Bayer Leverkusen 0
  • Real Madrid 1 AC Milan 3
  • Sporting 4 Manchester City 1

What’s next?

The remaining nine fixtures for matchweek four of the eight-round league phase take place on Wednesday.

  • Club Bruges vs Aston Villa (5.45pm BST/12.45pm ET)
  • Shakhtar Donetsk vs Young Boys (5.45pm BST/12.45pm ET)
  • Bayern Munich vs Benfica (8pm BST/3pm ET)
  • Feyenoord vs Red Bull Salzburg (8pm BST/3pm ET)
  • Inter Milan vs Arsenal (8pm BST/3pm ET)
  • Paris Saint-Germain vs Atletico Madrid (8pm BST/3pm ET)
  • Red Star Belgrade vs Barcelona (8pm BST/3pm ET)
  • Sparta Prague vs Brest (8pm BST/3pm ET)
  • Stuttgart vs Atalanta (8pm BST/3pm ET)

(Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)




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