<\/p>\n
PARIS: It was an English player\u2019s night in the Champions League, even as both of the English teams in action lost.<\/p>\n
Jude Bellingham once again inspired Real Madrid in a thrilling 3-2 win at Napoli on Tuesday as Manchester United and Arse\u00adnal were beaten by Galatasaray and Lens, respectively.<\/p>\n
Nine games into his Real car\u00adeer and Bellingham is fast becoming the team\u2019s star attraction.<\/p>\n
The England midfielder assisted Vinicius Junior for one goal to level the score at 1-1 after Leo Ostigard headed Napoli in front and then tore apart the Italian champions\u2019 defence on his own to score.<\/p>\n
Piotr Zielinski converted a penalty to level for Napoli at the start of the second half but an own goal from home goalkeeper Alex Meret \u2014 after some unfortunate deflections \u2014 handed Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s side the victory in Group \u2018C\u2019.<\/p>\n
It was the second Champions League game in a row where Bellingham played a vital role for Real after scoring the winning goal against Union Berlin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s so amazing about Bellingham is that he\u2019s only 20. He has great quality, a strong personality and character,\u201d Ancelotti told Sky Sport<\/em>. \u201cHe\u2019s a young man of 20 who\u2019s showing everyone what extraordinary talent he has.\u201d<\/p>\n Braga ruined Union\u2019s home debut in the competition as Andre Castro struck a stoppage-time winner in a 3-2 victory. Union were two goals ahead after Sheraldo Becker\u2019s brace but Sikou Niakate pulled one back before Bruma curled in a brilliant equaliser from 25 metres.<\/p>\n Castro broke Union hearts with a low strike from outside the area to give Braga their first points in their first Champions League app\u00ade\u00ada\u00adrance since 2012 while Union\u2019s qualifying chances have alre\u00adady taken a heavy blow.<\/p>\n United and Arsenal both lost to teams whose better days in European football were in the late 1990s and early 2000s \u2014 before Bellingham was born.<\/p>\n A 3-2 loss at home to Galat\u00adasaray despite two goals from Rasmus H\u00f8jlund \u2014 United\u2019s sixth defeat in 10 games in all competitions \u2014 means more pressure on manager Erik Ten Hag and his side in danger of an early exit<\/p>\n \u201cThe mental errors we make, you cannot allow them at this level. You get punished. This is difficult to control,\u201d Ten Hag told TNT Sports<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hojlund was one of the rare bright spots for United, scoring two well-taken goals, but Galatasaray responded both times as Wilfried Zaha netted against his old side before Kerem Akturkoglu struck.<\/p>\n Icardi dragged a penalty wide after Casemiro was sent off for a desperate lunge following a dreadful ball out from goalkeeper Andre Onana, but the Argentine had the last laugh when he chipped home on 81 minutes.<\/p>\n That leaves United bottom of Group \u2018A\u2019, four points behind Galatasaray in second place and six adrift of Bayern Munich who came from behind to beat FC Copenhagen 2-1 in Denmark.<\/p>\n Lukas Lerager fired the Danes ahead early in the second half, but Jamal Musiala bagged a superb individual goal to haul Bayern level before teenage substitute Mathys Tel lashed in a fine strike late on after combining with 34-year-old team-mate Thomas M\u00fcller.<\/p>\n Arsenal slumped to a first defeat of the season as Lens hit back to win 2-1 in northern France. Gabriel Jesus gave Mikel Arteta\u2019s side an ideal start when he opened the scoring in the 14th minute to silence a raucous Stade Bollaert.<\/p>\n Adrien Thomasson soon brought last season\u2019s Ligue 1 runners-up level and the visitors saw Bukayo Saka limp off before half-time.<\/p>\n Wahi, the 20-year-old striker who became Lens\u2019 club-record signing when he joined at the start of the campaign, then fired home in the 69th minute and his side held on for a famous victory.<\/p>\n Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice said his team \u201cmissed some big chances,\u201d but is \u201cjust warming up and getting into our rhythm\u201d at this stage of the season.<\/p>\n Arsenal\u2019s victory over PSV Eindhoven last time out was a landmark \u2014 a win in its first Champions League game since the 2016-17 season \u2014 but the wait for Lens was much longer. The French team last won a Champions League game back in 2002 against AC Milan and hadn\u2019t qualified for Europe\u2019s top club competition again until this season.<\/p>\n Lens climbed to the top of Group \u2018B\u2019 on four points, one above Arsenal. PSV snatched a 2-2 draw at home against Sevilla in the other game in the group courtesy of Jordan Teze\u2019s stoppage-time equaliser after a late flurry of goals in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n Real Sociedad also picked up their first Champions League win for 20 years, beating Salzburg 2-0 on first-half goals from Mikel Oyarzabal and Brais Mendez.<\/p>\n Marcus Thuram scored the only goal of the game for last season\u2019s Champions League runner-up Inter Milan in a 1-0 win over Benfica to move level on four points with Sociedad at the top of Group \u2018D\u2019.<\/p>\n Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PARIS: It was an English player\u2019s night in the Champions League, even as both of the English teams in action lost. Jude Bellingham once again inspired Real Madrid in a thrilling 3-2 win at Napoli on Tuesday as Manchester United and Arse\u00adnal were beaten by Galatasaray and Lens, respectively. Nine games into his Real car\u00adeer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/651dd04bb29b5.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}