{"id":82933,"date":"2026-09-09T02:13:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/82933\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T02:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:13:45","slug":"real-madrid-and-man-city-kick-off-with-wins-as-champions-league-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/82933\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid and Man City kick off with wins as Champions League returns"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were goals for Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland; and wins for Real Madrid and Manchester City as the Champions League<\/a> returned Tuesday for a new season.<\/p>\n

Mbappe gave record 15-time champion Madrid an early lead en route to 2-1 victory over Inter Milan at the Santiago Bernabeu.<\/p>\n

Haaland scored both goals as 2023 winner City beat Porto 2-0.<\/p>\n

Madrid and City are expected to be among the main challengers to back-to-back defending champion Paris Saint-Germain<\/a> this season, and each club will be relying on its star strikers.<\/p>\n

Mbappe’s goal after 14 minutes was his 71st in European club soccer’s top continental competition and saw him move level with Madrid great Raul in fifth place on the all-time scorers list. Haaland took his tally to 59 in 59 appearances in the Champions League.<\/p>\n

Borussia Dortmund beat Villarreal 3-2, and Real Betis won<\/a> by the same score at Lille.<\/p>\n

Aston Villa also won 3-2 over Club Brugge, and AEK Athens had a 1-0 win over LASK.<\/p>\n

PSG begins its campaign Wednesday against Slovan Bratislava.<\/p>\n

Classic Mourinho<\/p>\n

Jose Mourinho<\/a> made a winning return to the Champions League as head coach of Madrid despite Inter dominating possession.<\/p>\n

It was a classic Mourinho-inspired performance as Madrid capitalized on two first-half errors<\/a> by the visitors. <\/p>\n

When Inter lost possession deep in its own half Brahim Diaz slid in Mbappe, who fired low past Josep Martinez.<\/p>\n

The Inter goalkeeper was then guilty of indecision when Federico Valverde closed him down in his own area and poked the ball into an empty net.<\/p>\n

Inter, which ended the game with 61% possession, set up a tense finish when Carlos Augusto scored in the 77th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much criticism when a game is boring, but today it was crazy \u2014 it could easily have ended 7-6,\u201d Mourinho told broadcaster Movistar.<\/p>\n

Mourinho won his second Champions League title with Inter in 2010 and is aiming to join the likes of Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Zinedine Zidane by lifting the trophy for a third time.<\/p>\n

Unstoppable Haaland<\/p>\n

With five goals in his last three games, Haaland is in hot form. And it could have been even more if not for Porto goalkeeper Diogo Costa’s first-half performance.<\/p>\n

Haaland eventually found the breakthrough<\/a> at Estadio do Dragao with a header two minutes into the second half. He side-footed City’s second in stoppage time to make certain of the win and ensure new coach Enzo Maresca’s 100% start continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to learn. Enzo demands a lot from us and we have to demand a lot from each other,\u201d Haaland told Amazon Prime. \u201cWe have to win games because at Man City, you have to win trophies. That\u2019s what we have to do at this club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villa kicks off with a win<\/p>\n

Aston Villa put its domestic problems behind it with a win over Club Brugge.<\/p>\n

Victory in Belgium ended Villa’s winless and goalless start to its 2026-27 season, after early struggles in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

John McGinn recorded the first goal of the Champions League campaign<\/a> with a sweeping low shot from an angle in the 11th minute. Hugo Vetlesen equalized for Brugge, but Emiliano Buendia and Nicolas Jackson put Villa 3-1 up by the break.<\/p>\n

Nicolo Tresoldi scored for the home team with a penalty in the 61st, but Villa held on for the win.<\/p>\n

Villa coach Unai Emery will hope victory sparks his team’s season after the summer departures of star players Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins, Ezri Konsa and Emi Martinez.<\/p>\n

His much-changed team lost to Brighton and Arsenal in the Premier League and picked up its first point of the season with a goalless draw against newly promoted Hull on Saturday. It had recorded only one shot on target in those three games.<\/p>\n

Dortmund’s Karetsas hospitalized<\/p>\n

Borussia Dortmund teenager Konstantinos Karetsas was taken to the hospital<\/a> after slumping to the turf 25 minutes into his Champions League debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cKonstantinos Karetsas had to leave the field due to circulatory problems,\u201d Dortmund said in a statement. Karetsas \u201cis doing well under the circumstances and is on his way to the hospital for further tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serhou Guirassy scored three goals \u2014 two for Dortmund and one in his own net \u2014 in a frantic finish against Villarreal.<\/p>\n

Guirassy gave Dortmund a 2-1 lead in the 80th and then struck again from the penalty spot five minutes later.<\/p>\n

An added-time own goal made it 3-2.<\/p>\n

Parrott strikes again<\/p>\n

It has been an eventful few days for Troy Parrott<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Ireland international scored his first goal for new club Betis with a late winner against Madrid on Friday and he was on target again with the decisive goal in the 3-2 win in Lille.<\/p>\n

AEK Athens beat LASK 1-0 thanks to Razvan Marin’s brilliant first-half free kick.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

James Robson is at https:\/\/x.com\/jamesalanrobson<\/a><\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

\nSee AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were goals for Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland; and wins for Real Madrid and Manchester City as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[30624,13053,4297,7052,82,1249,396],"class_list":["post-82933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-bob-paisley","tag-james-robson","tag-jose-mourinho","tag-luis-enrique","tag-madrid","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}