Key events
Half time: Leverkusen 0-0 Inter
Stalemate. So far.
Goal! Shakhtar 1-2 Bayern Munich (Muller 45)
Bayern lead!
Goal! Atalanta 1-1 Real Madrid (De Ketelaere Pen 45)
Level in Bergamo!
Goal! Brest 1-0 PSV (Le Cardinal 43)
The deadlock is broken!
Half-time: RB Leipzig 1-1 Aston Villa
Tea and oranges all round.
I thought Giovanni was joking, with that previous incomplete email, but apparently not. He’s joking with this complete one instead:
“When the football night treats you with the Champions League winners versus Europa League winners plus the Italian champions versus the Bundesliga champions plus 4th placed Premier League versus 4th placed Bundesliga, it’s the perfect occasion to show off my multi-focusing skills watching all three matches at the same time on three different screens. Not that my cat Lemmy is really interested, he’s off to a snooze next to the crackling fireplace. Nor is my wife impressed, she asked to get Emmerdale on at least one device, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen tonight. I feel the king of the house. Tonight is all about me.”
44 min: Now Tielemans sends Watkins through! He shoots straight at the goalie.
41 min: McGinn sends Watkins through on goal on a speedy Villa counter. Watkins tucks a finish through Gulacsi’s legs. He looks a mile offside. On replay, it’s not actually a mile. It’s quite close. They are checking. And it is offside.
Giovanni Cafagna gets in touch:
“When the football night treats you with the Champions League winners versus Europa League winners plus the Italian champions versus the Bundesliga champions plus 4th placed Premier League versus 4th placed Bundesliga, it’s the perfect occasion to show off my skills of watching all three matches at”
The email ends mid-sentence, which is witty, when you think about it.
Brest v PSV and Inter v Leverkusen remain goalless.
35 min: Cash is in on the eight! He has Watkins in the middle, but opts to belt a shot from an angle. It’s straight at Gulacsi. Cash is prospering in this advanced role, anyway.
32 min: Rogers is nearly bearing down on the Leipzig goal as Villa look to restore their lead, but the ball is nicked off his toe at the last.
Goal! Red Bull Salzburg 0-1 PSG 1 (Ramos 30)
Crisis club PSG lead in Austria!
That’s a stinker from Emi Martínez. A hopeful ball is punted forwards from the home defence, straight down the middle. The Villa goalie comes to the edge of his box, but apparently doesn’t see Loïs Openda haring in at full pace from the Leipzig left. The Belgium international nicks the ball away with a smooth first touch, taking it past Martínez in one movement, and tucks the ball into the empty net. Shocking stuff from the world-champion gloveman.
Goal! RB Leipzig 1-1 Aston Villa (Openda 27)
Whoops!
Goal! Club Brugge 1-1 Sporting (Tzolis 24)
Sporting went ahead after 3min, through Geny Catamo, and now it’s all square thanks to Christos Tzolis’s leveller.
23 min: In Bergamo, Atalanta are looking threatening against Real Madrid, despite trailing to Mbappé’s opener. Éderson has a sight of goal after a classy give-and-go. Lookman had embarked on a mazy run before that.
“Hi Luke,” emails Simon Frank.
“Emery won’t play Durán for me now, he’ll save him for the morning after.”
I like that Simon. It’s terrible, but I like it.
Goal! Shakhtar Donetsk 1-1 Bayern Munich (Laimer 11)
All square in Gelsenkirchen.
Goal! Atalanta 0-1 Real Madrid (Mbappe 10)
Carlo Ancelotti’s men are off the mark in Bergamo.
“‘Absorbing’ is also a term often used by advertisers to describe various kitchen wipes for cleaning up all kinds of spilled and burned shi… stuff,” emails Justin Kavanagh. “Consider me wet-wiped out with UEFA’s new “stew-spilled-onto-the-floor-by-the-dog” format of endless and mostly meaningless matches.”
8 min: Nearly 2-0 in Leipzig: Digne crosses low, looking for Watkins, but the ball flashes past the goal. McGinn tries to cross/shot it back but it’s blocked. Then Villa get a corner and McGinn belts a wild shot over and wide.
“There are so many great games on right now, I don’t know which to watch,” writes Joe Pearson. “I guess I’ll go with the whiparound on the main screen, but follow Atalanta-Real on the second screen. For entertainment’s sake, I hope you have trouble keeping up.”
Goal! Shakhtar Donetsk 1 Bayern Munich 0 (Kevin 5)
The German giants trail. The Ukrainian giants lead.
Wealdstone are also 1-0 up on Altrincham.
Goal! Leipzig 0-1 Aston Villa (McGinn 3)
Rogers does well initially, Cash crosses to the far post, Watkins nods it back, McGinn clips in a simple finish.
That extremely well-worked goal comes after 153 seconds. Unai Emery puffs his chest out on the touchline. A good, accurate cross by Cash and an intelligent cushioned header by Watkins for his teammate McGinn. He couldn’t miss! (He could.)
Villa are playing 4-2-3-1 with Matty Cash on the right of the front three. That’ll be interesting and I expect he’ll do well there.
Champion, on the mic for Amazon Prime, also tells us that Leipzig have eight players out injured. Down to the bare bones. Three of the seven substitutes (as opposed to the permitted 12) are teenagers.
Jon Champion mentions Glühwein and Leipzig Christmas markets in his pre-match spiel. Lovely stuff.
The RB Leipzig and Aston Villa players are in the tunnel.
Jamie Jackson
Pep Guardiola has ruled himself out of managing another club after Manchester City due to a waning of his energy levels, stating an international coaching position would be of interest to him as his next role.
Guardiola signed a new contract with the champions in November until summer 2026 that will extend his tenure to a decade. The 53-year-old is yet to decide if he will depart then but, whenever he does, Guardiola has said he will not take charge of a club side again.
Mike in LA gets in touch: “Could anyone have predicted that Celtic would be above Man City, Juventus, and Real Madrid (OK, they have a game in hand) in the table this late into the tournament? And you can’t say that they’ve played demonstrably worse than their new peer clubs.
“Yeah, yeah, it ain’t gonna last. But for a while …”
Why not check out the latest Champions League table? Such fun.
“This is an email,” emails Richard Hirst. “Have just moved across to you from John Brewin: have a good evening.”
You too, Richard. Welcome aboard.
“Maybe you’d get more emails if you were covering the “proper” footie from tonight’s big games in the “Hardest League in the world TM”, namely at Eldorado-chasing Beerrrrrnleh, Soonderland and NastyLeeds,” emails Jeremy Boyce. “You know, footie that really counts!”
I shall be at Millwall v Sheffield United tomorrow – can’t wait!
“This game is not going to live long in the memory bank, that’s for sure,” says TNT Sports pundit Joe Hart of Dinamo Zagreb 0-0 Celtic, which is a final score.
Dinamo Zagreb 0-0 Celtic is a latest score. About to finish.
Could someone “>send me an email? Preferably about football – lol!
Liverpool have won – of course they have! Mohamed Salah got the goal in a 1-0 win at Girona. That is six out of six for Arne Slot’s side.
Ben Fisher
Unai Emery has urged Aston Villa to “break our limit” by enhancing their chances of advancing automatically to the Champions League last 16 with victory against RB Leipzig. Villa, in Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since 1983, can take a major step towards the knockout phase if they can defeat the Bundesliga side, who have not registered a point after five matches.
Nick Ames
If Paris Saint-Germain take an early lead at Red Bull Salzburg on Tuesday they may wonder whether to stick or twist. The new Champions League format has, at least in part, been designed to ensure Europe’s superpowers have fewer opportunities to fail, so their position risks embarrassment. They will not even qualify for the playoff round in February unless they improve on 25th place and, with three league-phase games remaining, are two points and three goals shy of the cutoff.
Victor Gyokeres, formerly of Coventry, clearly has an eager social media manager.
He leads the line for Sporting at Club Brugge.
Club Brugge v Sporting teams
Club Brugge: Mignolet, Seys, Ordonez, Mechele, De Cuyper, Nwadike, Jashari, Skov Olsen, Vanaken, Tzolis, Jutgla. Substitutes: Jackers, Romero, Vetlesen, Vermant, Nilsson, Nielsen, Spileers, Sabbe, Talbi.
Sporting: Israel, Quaresma, Diomande, Matheus Reis, Catamo, Hjulmand, Simoes, Araujo, Trincao, Quenda, Gyokeres. Substitutes: Kovacevic, Callai, St Juste, Debast, Edwards, Harder, Fresneda, Ricardo Esgaio, Brito, Couto, Arreiol.
Referee: Anthony Taylor (England)
Bayer Leverkusen v Inter Milan teams
Bayer Leverkusen: Kovar, Tapsoba, Tah, Hincapie, Mukiele, Palacios, Xhaka, Grimaldo, Frimpong, Wirtz, Tella. Substitutes: Hradecky, Lomb, Andrich, Terrier, Arthur, Schick, Garcia, Stepanov, Onyeka, Belocian.
Inter Milan: Sommer, Bisseck, de Vrij, Bastoni, Darmian, Frattesi, Calhanoglu, Zielinski, Carlos Augusto, Thuram, Taremi. Substitutes: Josep Martinez, Calligaris, Arnautovic, Lautaro Martinez, Buchanan, Asllani, Mkhitaryan, Barella, Dimarco, Aidoo.
Referee: Slavko Vincic (Slovenia)
RB Salzburg v Paris Saint-Germain teams
RB Salzburg: Schlager, Capaldo, Dedic, Samson Baidoo, Guindo, Bidstrup, Gourna-Douath, Gloukh, Yeo, Ratkov, Dorgeles. Substitutes: Oelz, Hamzic, Terzic, Blank, Okoh, Bajcetic, Clark, Diambou, Kawamura, Daghim, Mellberg.
PSG: Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho, Nuno Mendes, Neves, Vitinha, Fabian, Lee, Goncalo Ramos, Barcola. Substitutes: Safonov, Tenas, Asensio, Doue, Hernandez, Muani, Zaire Emery, Lucas Beraldo, Skriniar, Zague.
Referee: Michael Oliver (England)
Brest v PSV teams
Brest: Bizot, Le Cardinal, Chardonnet, Niakhate Ndiaye, Haidara, Camara, Fernandes, Magnetti, Del Castillo, Balde, Doumbia. Substitutes: Coudert, Jauny, Lala, Camblan, Sima, Amavi, Pereira Lage, Salah, Irie.
PSV: Benitez, Karsdorp, Flamingo, Boscagli, Dams, Saibari, Junior, Tillman, Bakayoko, de Jong, Lang. Substitutes: Drommel, Schiks, Obispo, Pepi, Til, Schouten, Veerman, Lozano, Oppegard, Ledezma.
Referee: Jose Maria Sanchez (Spain)
Atalanta v Real Madrid teams
Atalanta: Carnesecchi, Djimsiti, Hien, Kolasinac, Bellanova, de Roon, Ederson Silva, Ruggeri, Pasalic, De Ketelaere, Lookman. Substitutes: Rui Patricio, Rossi, Toloi, Kossounou, Godfrey, Zaniolo, Samardzic, Palestra, Retegui, Brescianini, Zappacosta.
Real Madrid: Courtois, Lucas, Tchouameni, Rudiger, Garcia, Diaz, Ceballos, Valverde, Bellingham, Mbappe, Vinicius Junior. Substitutes: Lunin, Mestre, Modric, Rodrygo, Guler, Endrick, Vallejo, Lekhedim, Asencio, Andres.
Referee: Szymon Marciniak (Poland)
RB Leipzig v Aston Villa teams
RB Leipzig: Gulacsi, Geertruida, Orban, Seiwald, Henrichs, Baumgartner, Vermeeren, Haidara, Nusa, Sesko, Openda. Substitutes: Vandevoordt, Klostermann, Andre Silva, Sakar, Jatta, Kampl, Gebel.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Konsa, Diego Carlos, Torres, Digne, Kamara, Tielemans, Cash, McGinn, Rogers, Watkins. Substitutes: Gauci, Olsen, Mings, Barkley, Duran, Buendia, Philogene-Bidace, Nedeljkovic, Maatsen, Onana, Bogarde, Swinkels.
Referee: Maurizio Mariani (Italy)
Shakhtar Donetsk v Bayern Munich teams
Shakhtar Donetsk: Riznyk, Konoplya, Bondar, Matviyenko, Ghram, Marlon Gomes, Zubkov, Bondarenko, Sudakov, Kevin, Sikan. Substitutes: Fesyun, Traore, Stepanenko, Eguinaldo, Kryskiv, Shved, Azarovi, Augusto, Nazaryna, da Silva Pedrinho, Newerton, Faryna.
Bayern Munich: Peretz, Laimer, Upamecano, Kim, Guerreiro, Kimmich, Goretzka, Olise, Musiala, Sane, Muller. Substitutes: Schmitt, Dier, Ibrahimovic, Boey, Irankunda, Aseko-Nkili, Tel, Pavlovic, Aznou, Klanac.
Referee: Halil Meler (Turkey)
Preamble
“Absorbing” is a term often used by commentators when trying to be nice about an indifferent match. So let’s also call this new-fangled Champions League format absorbing.
Tonight’s tranche of fixtures is headlined by Atalanta v Real Madrid along with Bayer Leverkusen v Inter – unless you happen to be an Aston Villa fan, in which case, the Villans’ away trip to RB Leipzig will be commanding your attention.
Brest v PSV, Shakhtar Donetsk v Bayern Munich and Club Brugge v Sporting are also on the menu, while there is jeopardy for Paris Saint-Germain in their away date with RB Salzburg. Luis Enrique’s men desperately need to add to their one win from five matches thus far.
I’ll endeavour to bring you all the goals as they go in. Are you not absorbed? Allez! Or, as we say in England, Go!
Kick-off: 8pm