UEFA Champions League: Lionel Messi break record for FC Barcelona, Juventus and Lazio register wins
Lionel Messi has extended his run of scoring at least one goal in the competition in 16 consecutive seasons in the UEFA Champions League as he scored his 116th goal in FC Barcelona's 5-1 win against Hungarian team Ferencvaros while Juventus coped well with the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo due to the coronavirus. Lazio also defeated Borussia Dortmund but for Barcelona, it was 17 year-olds Ansu Fati and Pedri who shone for the club.
Lionel Messi's Barcelona and Cristiano Ronaldo's Juventus are up and running already in the UEFA Champions League, though Messi scored a penalty to set Barca on its way to a 5-1 win over Hungarian outsider Ferencvaros as the Spanish team began the rebuild of its reputation in Europe's elite competition, two months after an embarrassing 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals last season. Ronaldo was missing for Juventus after testing positive for the coronavirus last week, but the Italian champion had a worthy replacement in Alvaro Morata as the striker scored twice in a 2-0 win at Dynamo Kyiv. There were wins for Lazio, Leipzig and Club Brugge, while Chelsea and Sevilla drew 0-0 and two group-stage newcomers Rennes and Krasnodar drew 1-1.
Other games were sparsely attended, with nearly 16,700 spectators watching Zenit St. Petersburg lose 2-1 to Brugge, 14,850 seeing Juventus win in Kyiv, and 5,000 attending the Rennes-Krasnodar game.
In the other game in Group H, Leipzig, a surprise semifinalist last season, beat Istanbul Basaksehir 2-0 in front of just under 1,000 fans thanks to two first-half goals by Spanish defender Angelio.
Messi now has 116 goals in the Champions League and extended his run of scoring at least one goal in the competition in 16 consecutive seasons. It was also a special night for two players nearly half his age, with 17-year-olds Ansu Fati and Pedri also scoring for Barcelona against Ferencvaros a club making its first appearance in the group stage in 25 years. Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele were the other scorers for Barcelona, which lost defender Gerard Pique to a straight red card with about 20 minutes left. Ihor Kharatin scored Ferencvaros' lone goal from the resulting penalty.
Messi and Ronaldo, two players who have been at the top of the world game for more than a decade, are in the same Champions League group for the first time and are set to meet next week when Juventus hosts Barca. Juventus coped well without Ronaldo in Kyiv, with Morata, a recent arrival from Atletico Madrid on loan, scoring twice in the second half.
AMERICAN PRESENCE
US national team goalkeeper Ethan Horvath is one of a record 10 Americans eligible for the group stage with various clubs. He didn't get off to the best of starts. Horvath, who plays for Brugge, was credited with an own-goal against Zenit after a shot by Dejan Lovren hit the post and bounced in off the back of the diving goalkeeper. Brugge grabbed a stoppage-time winner from Charles De Ketelaere, though, and joins Lazio on three points in Group F.
The Italian team, which is playing in the Champions League group stage for the first time in 13 years, beat Borussia Dortmund 3-1 through goals by Ciro Immobile and Jean-Daniel Akpa-Akpro as well as an own-goal by Dortmund goalkeeper Marwin Hitz. Erling Haaland scored for Dortmund.
In Group E, all four teams are on one point. Chelsea finally got its six major summer signings on the field together but couldn't find a way past stubborn Sevilla. Rennes took the lead against Krasnodar through striker Serhou Guirassy's penalty in the 56th but conceded three minutes later when left-back Cristian Ramirez's long-distance strike beat goalkeeper Alfred Gomis at the near post.