Ciao Ciao! Matchday 2 of UCL is over, so we are back with our matchday roundup. Welcome to the Calcio Charcha UCL roundup, India’s home for Italian football fans—stories, debates, and pure calcio passion. Here, we will not only break down and revisit how each team fared in their Champions League outing. So, let’s dive in.
UCL Matchday 2 review
In this Matchday, the Italian clubs were unbeaten, starting from Inter Milan who breezed past Slavia Praha with a 3-0 win at San Siro, to Atalanta, who beat Club Brugge with a goal dying minutes (87’) after trailing for 40 minutes 1-0 from a Tzolis goal at 38’ to start their comeback from the the goal of Samardzic at 74’ to completing it at 87’ winner from Pasalic goal. Napoli erased their past loss to Sporting CP 2-1 with a brace from Hojlund, and finally, Juventus were left disappointed as they have now dropped points for the second consecutive game in the UCL against Villareal, following their 4-4 draw against Dortmund at home in Matchday 1.
Now, let’s dive deep into each game in detail to discuss how each of the fixtures fared.
Inter Milan vs Slavia Praha
Inter Milan have continued their strong run in the Champions League as they beat Slavia Praha 3-0 at San Siro, making it their another routine victory after their win over Ajax in Matchday 1. The fate of this game was mostly sealed in the first half as Lautaro Martinez(30’) and Denzel Dumfries(34’) put them ahead by two goals, and then Martinez finally ended the game with his brace at 65’ as they sealed the game 3-0 at the end of the final whistle. Inter, as of now, with their easy run of fixtures in UCL, looks to book their place, if not for the direct Round Of 16 qualification spot, but at least for the Knockout Playoffs phase, as their draw will be more difficult from Matchday 5, as they face Atletico Madrid, Liverpool, and Arsenal.
Atalanta vs Club Brugge
Atalanta has come out of the Brugge test victorious, as the Belgian side is known to produce and scout talent from their academy to build a solid team. They are also known to cause problems for the Italian Sides following the recent past, as they have previously knocked out Atalanta from the UCL Knockout Playoffs last season. This win will act as a confidence booster to them after their heavy loss against PSG in Matchday 1. At last, we can say slowly, Atalanta is coming back to their tracks and is performing well compared to their start of the season.
Villareal vs Juventus
Juventus would be disappointed with themselves as they have now dropped points for the 2nd Matchday in a row after their 4-4 draw against Dortmund at Allianz Stadium; they were expecting to gain all three points from this fixture. Georges Mikautadze opened the scoring for the home side at the 18th minute and kept the Turin side silent for the rest of the first half. In the second half, Juventus made a comeback by scoring two goals within 7 minutes (49’ and 56’) following an out-of-the-world goal from Federico Gatti and another beautiful goal from Francisco Conceicao. But the former Juve man (on loan from Chelsea) Renato Veiga eventually found the net for Villareal at the death of the game in the 90th minute, ending the game 2-2 at a stalemate. Saying this, it could be said that Juve could have won the game if Jonathan David had converted an open chance in front of him, which might bite them later. Despite the disappointment for Juventus, it can be said that a good point was earned as they went away to Spain, and La Ceramica is always a tough stadium to travel to for any team.
Napoli vs Sporting CP
Napoli, after their tough defeat against City, being down 10 men, needed a statement victory to respond, and boy, they did it so well. Napoli beat Sporting CP 2-1 with Rasmus Hojlund scoring a brace. Both Kevin De Bruyne and Hojlund seem to enjoy each other’s partnership as they linked up quite well in the game, and both would look to prove themselves as Hojlund, after 2 tough years at United, seems to enjoy his life back in Italy, while De Bruyne is eyeing the 2026 World Cup and also has got a point to prove that he has still got it to compete at the elite levels. Besides, Antonio Conte also has a point to prove, as, despite being regarded and counted amongst the top managers currently, he is infamous for his Cup runs with the teams he managed, especially in the Champions League. So, Conte would himself like to prove his doubters wrong with a deep run into the Champions League.
Conclusion
So, from the results of this Matchday, we can conclude that it was a good week in business for the Serie A clubs in the Champions League and they would expect this to continue so that these can go further into this competition which eventually would help them in earning an extra UCL spot for Serie A next season and also more revenue for the teams progressing.
