I don’t think you can ask for much more excitement. The past two days of Champs League play have seen stunning upsets, wild comebacks, and goals galore. Yesterday, we recapped the Wednesday games; today we’ll do the same for yesterday’s fiesta.

But first: Speaking broadly, this was a good Matchday for the Italian and French sides; a poor one for the Germans, and a bit mixed for the English and Spanish teams.

Let’s start with the easy ones: Chelsea simply slaughtered Atletico, racking up a 4-0 win with ease. This shouldn’t be a shock considering that Atletico is miserable this season, having won only one game so far in their own league and none so far in the European Cup. Chelsea has likely locked up a slot in the knockout stage with 3 wins in three games, and they sit comfortably atop Group D after what amounted to little more than a training exercise. They are joined by Porto, who beat the surprising Cypriot side APOEL in a much more dogged affair. Porto finished the match with ten men after Gonzalez was ejected, but the blocky striker Hulk saved the day for the home team. They now sit on six points and would need to collapse not to progress.

Manchester United slogged through the Moscow gloom to pip CSKA 1-0 thanks to a late goal by Valencia, but the real takeaway is how awful the match was on that plastic pitch. No matter how advanced that stuff gets, the ball still dips, slips and bounces unnaturally. CSKA is still in it because Wolfsburg played to a scoreless draw against Turks Besiktas in the day’s snoozer. The lone bit of excitement came when the German’s top scorer, Grafite, was bounced for elbowing Ibrahim in the area.

The weird games were in Group A. How many times do you see a team miss two penalty kicks? That’s just what happened to Bordeaux, who squeezed out a 2-1 win over Bayern Munich despite the fact that the Germans had two men ejected in the game. Bayern will miss Muller and van Buyten, but they have to be thanking their lucky stars they only lost by a goal on the road. Likewise, Juventus made heavy work in heavy weather of what should have been a straightforward outing against Maccabi Haifa. Nope. Despite finishing the game against ten men when Dutra was tossed for a bad foul on David Trezeguet, Juventus could only manage one goal, and Haifa tested Gigi Buffon repeatedly in the net. Diego was the man of the match for the Old Lady, consistently dangerous on the night.

The big game of the day was in Group C, and no it was not in Switzerland. The Marseille win over FC Zurich game was what you would expect: Leaden and foul-ridden. Marseille got the win thanks to Gabriel Heinze, but the standout was Zurich keeper Johnny Leoni, who kept the Swiss in the game.

The barnburner was Real Madrid hosting AC Milan. After a slow first half, the game sparked to life when Milan keeper Dida failed to hold a save, allowing Raul to punch the ball past him into the net. Andrea Pirlo and Pato scored midway through the second half, only to see Drenthe level it up for Madrid, but it was The Duck, with a great first-time shot off as cross from Clarence Seedorf that decided it.

But the denoument might well be an examination of ref Frank de Bleeckere, who had a nightmarish game. He incorrectly disallowed a Milan goal late in the second half; incorrectly failed to award a penalty after Zambrotta hacked Karim Benzema down in the area; and made a serious of curious decisions throughout the game. (De Bleeckere, mind you, was the gent who sent off the Ghana player in the U-20 final this year… for a clumsy challenge at the halfway line. That could have been a caution instead, and his decision raised a lot of eyebrows.) Had AC Milan lost, they would have been rightly furious.


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TV
UEFA Europa League (Times EDT)

9 televised matches at 1255
Benfica vs Everton – GolTV and DTV 470
Lazio vs Villarreal - DirecTV 462 (SDD 2000 GolTV)
Athletic Bilbao vs Nacional - DirecTV 463
Austria Vienna vs Werder Bremen - DirecTV 464
Shakhtar Donetsk vs Toulouse - DirecTV 465
Steaua Bucharest vs Fenerbahce - DirecTV 466
PSV vs Copenhagen - DirecTV 467
BATE Borisov vs AEK Athens - DirecTV 468
FC Salzburg vs Levski Sofia  - DirecTV 469

9 televised matches at 1500
Fulham vs Roma - GolTV and DTV 470
Valencia vs Slavia Praha - DirecTV 462
Celtic vs Hamburg - DirecTV 463
Lille vs Genoa  - DirecTV 464
Galatasaray vs Dinamo Bucharest  - DirecTV 465
AFC Ajax vs Dinamo Zagreb  - DirecTV 466
Ventspils vs Sporting  - DirecTV 467
Panathinaikos vs Sturm Graz   - DirecTV 468
Hertha Berlin vs Heerenveen   - DirecTV 469
(TV listings courtesy of Oliver Tse)