There can be no denying it's been a disappointing start to the season for AS Monaco. After getting dumped out of Champions League qualifying by Shakhtar Donetsk, the principality club sits eighth in Ligue 1 after eight games.
MADRID — When Moldovan minnows Sheriff Tiraspol qualified for the elite Champions League, becoming the first side from that country to do so, pundits were scratching their heads and asking 'who?'.
Then, when they were drawn in a group with Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk, it was thought by pundits to be a case of how many goals they would lose by.
El Sheriff Tiraspol tuvo una de las noches más mágicas de su historia, luego de sorprender al mundo y vencer al Real Madrid -¡de visita!- en la Champions League. La victoria además vino con elementos estéticos innegables y la carga emocional de un gol en el epílogo del partido.
Zurdazo de sobrepique directo a la escuadra y al ego de Florentino Pérez.
SHERIFFFFFFFF! WHAT A GOAL TO UPSET REAL! pic.twitter.com/pxQVlbfVCl
The deal was as good as done. The year was 1978, and a 17-year-old Argentine phenom named Diego Maradona was set to become a Sheffield United player.
Harry Haslam, manager of the Second Division side, was on a scouting mission in Argentina and looking at a pair of players but couldn't come up with the requisite funds.
If you've been watching Champions League and Europa League football consistently over the past decade, there's a certain Swiss club called Young Boys that's undoubtedly captured your attention. They were in the UCL group stage in 2018, advanced to the UEL Round of 16 in 2021 and are now back in the 2021-22 UCL group stage, but why is the club called Young Boys?
If you’re like most of the football world on Tuesday, you were focused on the battle between the world’s two richest sides, PSG and Manchester City. As sad as Bernardo Silva was after his miss in that match, there was no one sadder on Tuesday than Diogo Costa, the Porto goalkeeper who was caught disastrously out of position by Roberto Firmino.
-¡Leo!...
- ¡Messi!
- ¡Leo!...
- ¡Messi!
Las tribunas del Parque de los Príncipes explotaron hoy por primera vez ante el genio de Lionel Messi. Después de 100 minutos en Ligue 1 y 164 en Champions League, el jugador argentino finalmente dejó su magia en las redes, convirtiendo en la victoria por 2-0 sobre el Manchester City.
El debut goleador de Messi con el PSG ocurrió en el minuto 74 de juego y selló la victoria parisina. ¿La confección de la conquista? Lo más Messi que uno puede imaginar.
The experts gave FC Sheriff Tiraspol a 2 percent chance of winning at the Santiago Bernabéu against Real Madrid on Tuesday. The Moldovan club pulled off the most unlikely upset in Champions League history to win 2-1.
If you were to put $100 on Sheriff defeating Real Madrid, you would have won $2,800. The result is mindboggling, and it came in the most dramatic fashion with an 89th minute screamer from Luxembourg international Sebastien Thill.
Manchester City looked like a world beater in its first Champions League match of the season, the type of team that can score at will, whenever it wants. Match Day 2 was a different story for Pep Guardiola’s side, and the Bernardo Silva miss vs PSG may haunt the Citizens if they’re unable to claim first place in Group A.
It was billed as the most expensive football match in the world — the $1.10 billion squad value of PSG against the $1.16 billion of Manchester City. There was also the subplot of the most expensive transfer of the summer, City’s Jack Grealish at $135.5 million, versus PSG’s acquisitions of Lionel Messi, Georginio Wijnaldum, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Achraf Hakimi. All five started.