Champions League 2012-13: The second matchday, Part II

Go to Part I
Group E

Nordsjælland-Chelsea 0-4 (Mata (2), David Luiz, Ramires)

Despite the score, Nordsjælland was not totally smashed by the Champions of Champions. In fact, the Danish champions considered an unnecessary goal after a childish mistake in the midfield. They had several chances to equalize afterwards, including an episode where the ball hit the post. Only after David Luiz scored a beautiful goal from a free kick the home side stopped playing. Chelsea’s Mata was in a great form.

Juventus-Shakhtar1-1 (Bonucci-Teixeira)

Juventus Stadium was being
inaugurated for the biggest European tournament. It was the Ukrainian Shakhtar, to help Juventus open the Champions league curtains for a stadium, which surely is going to see countless major clashes. But for that particular day the stadium was far from its potential capacity. And the game could also be described with the same tones. Two teams hadn’t left the pitch without earning points for quite a long time, so they knew how not to lose better than any other team. Yes, Shakhtar was more active than expected and Juventus quieter, but the teams took a point each, leaving the biggest fights for the future. On one side this might look as an advantage for Shakhtar; a point taken from Turin is a very worthy one, considering the chilly Ukrainian weather on the 5^th of December, when the two meet again. On the other side, Juventus has got two matchdays to wait for one of the Shakhtar-Chelsea couple to fall in their internal fight. Everything is still possible in this group.  

  

Standings:

Chelsea 4

Shakhtar 4

Juventus 2

Nordsjælland 0

Next matches:

Nordsjælland-Juventus

Shakhtar-Chelsea

Intrigue: This is the only group where no team has earned all 6 six points. The most important matches start now. Assuming that Nordsjælland is not earning a point in this group, the following two matches between Shakhtar and Chelsea are essential. Shakhtar shouldn’t be underestimated. So Chelsea needs to work hard to earn more points in these two matches than its opponent. The team earning 4 or more in these two matches can be considered as a realistic candidate for play-offs. The other team will respectively become an underdog. 3 points each might put the responsibility on Juventus, who will then need to do better than signing a stalemate when hosting Chelsea or travelling to Donetsk. And, finally, 2 points each might leave the teams, and especially Shakhtar, with some problems when counting the points on the 5^th of December.   

Group F

BATE-Bayern 3-1 (Pavlou, Radzionau, Bressan-Ribery)

Oh my, oh my! This is what happens when you underestimate your opponent. Seriously, if these two played 10 more matches, I am sure Bayern would win all of them. And the Germans are in a perfect form. They still win and only win in Bundesliga: a league, where the relegation candidates could easily beat the Belarusian champions. But this is exactly why we love Champions League. And now we love BATE Borisov, which has delivered two shocking results in the first two matches; one defeating Lille and another - Bayern. Getting back to the match, the poorest ever defensive actions by Boateng, Dante, Badstuber and Lahm would never be justified by the impressive statistics shown in the attack. Bayern had possessed the ball for 61%, earned 14 corners, which is exactly 13 more than BATE, and completed 504 passes against BATE’s 253.

Valencia-Lille 2-0 (Jonas (2))     

Valencia didn’t experience a lot of problems against Lille, to be honest. Jonas became a lucky author of a brace. Rudi Garcia’s side has to start earning points, if they really take Champions League serious.

Standings:

BATE 6

Bayern 3

Valencia 3

Lille 0

Next matches:

Lille-Bayern

BATE-Valencia

Intrigue: Half of Europe has started to follow BATE and hope for them to continue their inspirational form. In most cases 8 points are enough to qualify for the next round and the Belarusian champions have already earned 6. Unfortunately for them, their group seems to be one of those without lots of draws. This means that even 10 points might not be enough for them to qualify. If BATE doesn’t manage to earn more than a point in the matches against Valencia, getting dissolved in Europa League is what expects them next spring. So BATE has to show something spectacular to its encouraged fans this Tuesday.

Group G

Spartak-Celtic 2-3 (Emenike (2)-Hooper, D. Kombarov(og), Samaras)

The earliest match of the matchday 2 brought us the same scenario as the one Spartak was involved in at Nou Camp. This time it was Celtic that managed to score one, then concede two, and finally clinch the victory. The same scenario, however, had a small difference – the attitude of Spartak fans. If they were proud of their players after the loss to Barcelona, this time they were chanting “shame”. Spartak was controlling the ball, but the things were not getting too dangerous. On the other side, Hooper and Samaras had a great match, securing the first three points for the men in black.

Benfica-Barcelona 0-2 (Alexis Sanchez, Fabregas) 

Benfica lost: so what? Even statistics didn’t let the Portuguese any chances. The number of completed passes: 175 against 770. Two of these 770 were masterpieces with a Leo Messi stamp on them. Sanchez and Fabregas used them properly. Is there anybody out there blaming Benfica?

Standings:

Barcelona 6

Celtic 4

Benfica 1

Spartak 0

Next matches:

Spartak-Benfica

Barcelona-Celtic

Intrigue: Life beyond Barcelona is getting interesting. Spartak and Benfica can catch Celtic in the next rounds. And none of the three involved in the previous sentence has lost any hope to be the lucky team to follow Barcelona into play-offs. Spartak-Benfica, the more intriguing match of the group, starts at 18:00 CET.

Group H

Cluj-Manchester United 1-2 (Kapetanos-van Persie(2))

I am not sure Manchester United fans are impressed with the performance their team defenders show this season, but Robin van Persie, now joined with Wayne Rooney, keeps scoring in his first season like no one before. The starting line-up had changed a lot compared to the previous match, but apparently it is van Persie’s and Rooney’s appearance that is fundamental nowadays. This time the Dutchman scored two times. If the first one, scored with a shoulder, could be suspected to be incidental, the second goal was pure elegance, when RVP softly punished the Cluj goalkeeper for wrong positioning. It was Rooney, who assisted in both cases. As for Cluj, the hero of the previous match, Rafael Bastos, was exceptional again. The score was opened after his amazing cross found Sougou in the right wing. Bastos managed to hit the post on another occasion, but this is not enough to earn a point against Manchester United.

Galatasaray-Braga 0-2 (Ruben Micael, Alan)

Despite controlling the whole match, the home side was not able to score. Braga’s away model was as good as the home one, but this one scores goals. The fight for the second place is still to come in this group.

Standings:

Manchester United 6

Cluj 3

Braga 3

Galatasaray 0

Next matches:

Manchester United-Braga

Galatasaray-Cluj

Intrigue: If Galatasaray and Cluj have serious intentions to battle for anything more than Europa League tickets, they need to earn as many points as possible in their internal meetings, while Braga might take a short pause. But it is not easy to say, which one of the two is stronger. The first match will show.

	League	Pts.
1 (-)	Spain (4)	21
2 (+1)	England (4)	17
3 (-1)	Germany (3)	11
4 (-)	Portugal (3)	10
5 (+3)	Ukraine (2)	7
6 (-1)	Belarus (1)	6
7 (+2)	Italy (2)	6
8 (+2)	Scotland (1)	4
9 (-2)	France (3)	4
10 (-4)	Romania (1)	3
11 (-)	Belgium (1)	1
12 (-)	Greece (1)	0
13 (-)	Turkey (1)	0
14 (-)	Netherlands (1)	0
15 (-)	Croatia (1)	0
16 (+1)	Russia (2)	0
17 (-1)	Denmark (1)	0

Looking at the table above, it is clear to see which two the best European leagues are. France is in a very disappointing position, where 3 teams have earned 4 points in total. There were six leagues, representatives of which hadn’t earned points after the first matchday. They didn’t earn any in their next matches either. 

Topscorers: Cristiano Ronaldo is the topscorer with 4 goals. He is followed by Gervinho, Podolski, Huntelaar, Eliseu, Isco, Benzema, Oscar, Mata, Mkhitaryan, Jonas, Radzionau, Emenike, Messi, Bastos and van Persie, who all have scored two times so far.

3 Best goals of the day: There were lots of beautiful goals among the 50 goals scored in the second matchday. After some deliberation, the best trio has been decided:

3. El Shaarawy (Milan) – The Milan youngster has been one of the few positive topics about AC Milan this season. In the match against Zenit he confirmed his status of a talented player. On the 16^th minute of the match he got the ball in the midfield, started to slalom, while being surrounded by 4, dribbled away from all Zenit defenders, easily leaving his national teammate Criscito behind, and beat Malafeev.

 

2. Benzema (Real) – In a fast counterattack at the beginning of the second half Marcelo sent the ball to the right wing, where Kaka perfectly lifted the ball for Karim Benzema to execute a powerful overhead volley.

1. Eliseu (Malaga) – And again Malaga player appears in our top 3. Watch Eliseu’s powerful shot!

Fact of the day: Despite being quite comfortable in their domestic leagues, 4 teams, expected to go really far in this Champions League, disappointed their fans. But if Juventus and Manchester City could eventually escape from a disastrous defeat, in matches where they were supposed to win, Bayern and PSG deservedly lost. Taking into account the average performance shown by Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Milan, the giants have still got some serious work to do, before they can be secure of surprise exits.    

RANKING BEFORE THE THIRD MATCHDAY

Place	Club
1 (-)	Real Madrid (Spain)
2 (-)	FC Barcelona (Spain)
3 (+5)	Chelsea (England)
4 (+1)	Man. Utd. (England)
5 (-2)	Bayern (Germany)
6 (-2)	Man. City (England)
7 (-)	Juventus (Italy)
8 (+1)	Borussia D. (Germany)
9 (+3)	Malaga (Spain)
10 (-4)	PSG (France)
11 (-1)	Arsenal (England)
12 (-1)	Milan (Italy)
13 (+2)	Porto (Portugal)
14 (-1)	Shakhtar D. (Ukraine)
15 (-1)	Schalke 04 (Germany)
16 (-)	Valencia (Spain)
17 (+3)	BATE (Belarus)
18 (-1)	Zenit (Russia)
19(+7)	Celtic (Scotland)
20(+9)	Sp. Braga (Portugal)
21 (+3)	Benfica (Portugal)
22 (+1)	Montpellier (France)
23 (-4)	CFR Cluj (Romania)
24 (-6)	Ajax (Netherlands)
25 (+5)	Dynamo K. (Ukraine)
26 (+1)	Olympiacos (Greece)
27 (-6)	Anderlecht (Belgium)
28 (-)	Lille (France)
29 (-7)	Galatasaray (Turkey)
30 (-5)	Spartak M. (Russia)
31 (+1)	Dinamo Z. (Croatia)
32 (-1)	Nordsjæland (Denmark)