Athletistic/ Football. On September 13, the second round of the UEFA Champions League group stage begins, which will be rich in interesting confrontations.
The most attractive and strong signs of the first matchday of the second round are the matches “Sporting” – “Tottenham”, “Liverpool” – “Ajax” and “Bayern” – “Barcelona”.
7:45 p.m. Sporting-Tottenham
Meeting of the leaders of group D, who in the first round beat their rivals on a dry score. “Sporting” defeated Eintracht Frankfurt 3:0, “Tottenham” thanks to a brace from Brazilian striker Richarlison left French “Marseille” without work – 2:0.
The match favorites are Antonio Conte’s side, who outperform Sporting in almost every way. Sure, the Portuguese side beat last season’s Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt with a devastating scoreline, but here it’s more about Eintracht’s poor start to the season than the incredible attacking moves of Sporting.
Ruben Amorim’s team in the Portuguese Primeira is ambiguous: after 6 rounds, the Lisbon club is in 7th place in the standings, with 10 points to its credit. Sporting has 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. Tottenham is much more stable in the domestic championship: in 6 games, Spurs have won 4 and drawn 2, and with 14 points they are in 3rd place in the Premier League table, behind the leader – Arsenal of London – by one single point.
Tottenham can and must beat Sporting in their field, then crack down just as calmly against Eintracht and leave one of the easiest groups in the Champions League in the 1/8 finals. But if you don’t step forward, then the closest instance of the Conte team is Lisbon, from where you must achieve victory.
Provide sport.Fr: Victory for Tottenham.
10 p.m. Liverpool – Ajax
In the match “Liverpool” and “Ajax” the leader of the group will fight with one of the main losers of the first round. Jurgen Klopp’s quarters in the first round of the Champions League on the road lost devastatingly to Italian “Napoli” with a score of 1:4, and took third place in group A only because the other loser of the quartet – the Scot “Rangers” – did not respond to Ajax’s four goals with anything, losing dry – 0:4.
Ajax last conceded on August 14 – in the Dutch Eredivisie game against Groningen, which ended in a 6-1 victory for the Amsterdam club. Then there were five clear matches in a row: against Sparta (1-0), Utrecht (2-0), Cambuur (4-0), Rangers (4-0) and Heerenveen (5-0). In five encounters, Ajax have scored 16 unanswered goals for their opponents. Liverpool have also scored 13 goals in their last five matches, but only 9 of their 13 goals have come in a single game against Bournemouth on August 27, which ended in a 9-0 landslide victory for Liverpool. Unlike Ajax, the Reds have conceded 7 goals in their last five games.
Liverpool are in a fever, otherwise seventh place in the Premier League with 9 points after six rounds cannot be explained. Last season’s Champions League finalist has been hostage to a host of injuries: defender Ibrahima Konate, as well as midfielders Naby Keita, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Curtis Jones and Fabio Carvalho will miss the game with Ajax for various reasons.
Nominally, even without these performers, Liverpool are favorites in the game with Ajax, but the English club’s advantage is more fragile than ever.
Provide sport.Fr: Liverpool win or draw.
22:00. Bayern – Barcelona
Last season, these top teams already played together in the same group and Bayern beat Barcelona twice with the same score – 3:0. In the first game, which took place on September 14, 2021 at the Camp Nou, Ronald Koeman was still in charge of Barça, in the second game at the Allianz Arena on December 8, 2021, Xavi could not oppose anything against Bayern by Julian Nagelsman. . Robert Lewandowski scored twice in those clashes, both at Camp Nou, and netted an assist at the Allianz Arena.
Camp Nou is now home to Lewandowski, and he has already opened the scoring with his Champions League goals at this stadium, with the Pole netting a hat-trick against Victoria in the first round of the group stage. What will Lewandowski show at the Allianz Arena, which has been his home for many years? At a minimum, a high level of dedication, in a more favorable scenario, one or more effective actions should be expected from Robert.
“Barcelona” started the season on the famous Spanish example, having stumbled only once – in the first round “Barcelona” failed to score a single goal against the modest “Rayo Vallecano”, and the match ended with a score of 0:0. At the moment, Xavi’s wards are second in the La Liga table with 13 points, behind leaders – Real Madrid – just 2 points.
Things are going well for Bayern in the Bundesliga as well. Yes, Nagelsmann’s side are not in the lead yet, but with 12 points after 6 games they sit third in the league standings, trailing the unexpected leader – Union Berlin – by just 2 points. Hoffenheim and Borussia Dortmund also have 12 points each, which sit 4th and 5th in the table respectively.
No one doubts that the Union briefly leads the Bundesliga, another thing is that after a convincing away victory over Inter (2-0) in the first round of the Champions League group stage, the Bayern did not win the match with Bundesliga outsider “Stuttgart”, having conceded a goal in the 90+2nd minute – the game ended in a 2:2 draw. This means that even such a perfect machine, which Bayern showed in the game with Inter, there are weaknesses that Barcelona must exploit.
Winger Kingsley Coman, who is suffering from hamstring problems, could miss the game against Barca. Barcelona have absolutely every first-team player healthy. It’s not easy to pinpoint the favorite for the match but, given the home stands, a slight advantage is still on Bayern’s side.
Provide sport.Fr: Bayern win or draw.
Other matches
At 7:45 p.m. Moscow time, “Victoria” and Milan “Internazionale” will play – the rivals of “Bayern” and “Barcelona” in the group. The undisputed favorite of this match is the Italian team: the loss of points with an opponent as modest as Victoria, if it does not lead to the resignation of the head coach of the Nerazzurri Simone Inzaghi, will definitively return his position in the more precarious team.
At 10:00 p.m. there will also be Rangers – Napoli, Porto – Bruges, Bayer – Atlético and Marseille – Eintracht matches. Super start to the season, “Napoli” should not notice the “Rangers”, who, on the contrary, started the season rather sluggishly. ‘Porto’ are able to cope with ‘Bruges’ with little bloodshed. “Atletico” will almost certainly dry up the game again in their favor, and in the confrontation with “Bayer” from Leverkusen, the “mattress” has every chance to achieve the desired result. And ‘Marseille’ can and must face ‘Eintracht’ – last season’s Europa League winner in the current playing year so far is frankly unimpressive both domestically and in European competition.
Maxim Fomchenkov, sport.ru
Source: Sport
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