UEFA Champions League 2017/2018 Match Day 1: Highlights and Round Up

The UEFA Champions League, kicked off last night and it was as exciting as anticipated. Giving us 23 goals from the first eight matches that involved the teams in Group A to D.

In Group A, Manchester United hosted Basel at the Old Trafford stadium and by halftime, the visitors were trailing by a goal, before the in-form Lukaku added the second and then Marcos Rashford sealed the win with an 84th minute strike. In the other fixture in the group, Benfica lost at home to CSKA Moscow although they had taken the lead earlier thanks to a goal from Haris Seferovic in the 50th minute but Vitinho canceled out the opener before Timur Zamaletchi scored with 71 minutes on the board. Manchester United go top ahead of CSKA Moscow and Basel are at the bottom of the group.

Bayern Munich showed they had recovered from the weekend upset as they bashed Anderlecht who were clearly underdogs and went down early when Lewandoski converted a penalty just 12 minutes into the game with Thiago Alcantara and Kimmich also scoring. But they would be second in the group standings because PSG pummeled Celtic in Scotland 5-0 and the trio of Neymar, Cavani and Mbappe all got into the score sheet .

Group C proceedings is led by Chelsea after the English defending champions put six goals past Qarabag, who could not respond with any goal. Pedro scored the first goal in the 5th minute and Zappacosta scored before Aziplicueta, Bakayoko, Batshuayi and an own goal added to the scpre tally. Meanwhile, Roma held Atletico Madrid who are favorites to qualify in the group to a goalless draw.

Group D giants Barcelona and Juventus went head to head and the Catalonians got out on top as they got a deserved revenge over Juventus with the same score line the Italians had used to knock them out of the competition last seas0n (3-0). Messi grabbed a brace as he broke the duck of goal drought against Buffon and Ivan Rakitic added the third goal. Sporting CP proved that they qualified on their own terms as the beat Olympiacos away, going ahead in the first half by 3-0 before the hosts pulled two back, thanks to a late brace from Felipe Pardo.