The first day of the 2024-2025 Champions League, launched in a new format, concluded on Thursday evening.
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That’s it, the Champions League is back. With a new format, of course, but the C1 is definitely back. After 18 matches spread over three days, the first day went rather well for the French clubs. The only real surprise was AS Monaco, who beat FC Barcelona (2-1) on Thursday. For the rest, the favorites held their own, with Bayern in the lead.
A promising 3/4 for French clubs
Three French clubs winning on the same day of the Champions League group stage, that hasn’t happened for fourteen years. Even if this European season started badly, with Lille’s defeat on Tuesday at Sporting in Lisbon (0-2), the trend has completely reversed. PSG assumed its status as favorite against Girona (1-0) without being particularly brilliant on Wednesday. We will especially remember the successes of Brest and Monaco.
The Breton team was playing its first ever Champions League match and quite logically dominated Sturm Graz (2-1) in Guingamp, its temporary home since Francis-Le Blé, its usual stadium, does not meet UEFA criteria. Playing more than 100 km from home did not kill the party. The atmosphere was a little less festive and more subdued in Monaco, where Michael Jordan was able to watch from the stands ASM’s exploit against FC Barcelona (2-1), expected to be one of the favourites for the title this season. The evening quickly turned in the right direction for the club from the Rock, which got Eric Garcia sent off in the 10th minute. Maghnes Akliouche opened the scoring (16th) and George Ilenikhena (71st) responded to the equaliser by the prodigy Lamine Yamal (28th).
Mbappé gets closer to the best
It took him 46 minutes. In his first match, Kylian Mbappé opened his account by scoring his first goal in C1 with Real Madrid. Not his hardest goal, since he only had to push Rodrygo’s offering into the back of the net, but a goal that will count in his career. At 25, it is his 49th in the Champions League, just one point behind Thierry Henry, who is ahead of him in 8th place in the ranking of the best scorers in history.
With this new format more conducive to big scores and with more matches, Kylian Mbappé could still move up the hierarchy: in addition to Henry, he could already overtake Thomas Müller (54 goals) this year, or even Ruud van Nistelrooy (56). The top 5, closed by Raul (71), still seems unattainable.
Nine goals and a record for Bayern Munich
9-2. Never has a team scored so many goals in a Champions League match since the competition took that name in 1992. That’s what Bayern Munich managed to do by crushing Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday. The Bavarian club had already inflicted a 10-0 on Cypriots Anorthosis Famagusta in 1983-1984, but that was in the UEFA Cup. It was also the team that crushed FC Barcelona 8-2 in 2020.
In detail, this includes a quadruple from Harry Kane, the first player to score three penalties in a Champions League match, and two goals from Michael Olise, the first Frenchman since Thierry Henry in 1997 to score a double on his Champions League debut. In short, who else but Bayern Munich for such a fireworks display?