7 months ago
88
18 September 2024 - 11:05
Ibrahima Konate celebrates scoring Liverpool's first goal with Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai in their Uefa Champions League match against AC Milan at the San Siro in Milan on Tuesday night.
Image: Reuters/Claudia Greco
On a night that saw Liverpool's Arne Slot and AC Milan's Paulo Fonseca each take the managerial reins in a Champions League game with their new teams for the first time, their experiences could not have been more different.
Slot guided Liverpool to a resounding 3-1 victory over Fonseca's Milan at San Siro on Tuesday night, as his team remained calm after a shaky start, storming back after conceding a goal in the opening three minutes.
“To come back so strong and dominant, it was a deserved victory,” said Slot, who replaced retired manager Juergen Klopp at the Merseyside club. “This is an evening I will remember in the future. Hopefully many more times like this will come as Liverpool manager.”
Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai scored for Liverpool after Christian Pulisic capitalised on some disorganised defending by the Reds for Milan's lone goal.
A day after Fonseca said his men would have to be “defensively perfect” against Liverpool, they were porous and far from perfect. And it could have been significantly worse with Liverpool enjoying 11 shots on target to the home side's two.
“We played against Liverpool, a great team,” Fonseca, who replaced Stefano Pioli at Milan, told Sky. “We started the match well offensively and defensively, then we conceded two goals from set pieces which changed the game.
“When details are missing we can have problems doing what we prepare in training, Liverpool are more of a team than us, we have to work to play without problems for 70/80 minutes.”
Asked about conceding almost identical goals from two centrebacks — Konate and Van Dijk — Fonseca said: “For the first goal we had a man on Van Dijk, we had prepared this. He was free, it's true, but the central defenders had to be taken with individual marking.”
The two managers have had wildly different starts to their respective leagues this season too, with Slot's men winning their first three games before a shock 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday to sit fourth in the Premier League.
AC Milan sit 10th in the Serie A table with one win in four games.
Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane scored four goals to lead his side to a 9-2 demolition of visitors Dinamo Zagreb and became the highest-scoring English player in the competition's history with 33 goals.
In a game that set a record for most goals in a Champions League match, Bayern struck three times in the first half with Kane, who scored a hat-trick in their Bundesliga win over Holstein Kiel on Saturday, converting a 19th minute penalty.
Raphael Guerreiro drilled home from a superb Jamal Musiala assist in the 33rd and Michael Olise added another five minutes later.
The Croats then scored twice in two minutes through Bruno Petkovic in the 49th and Takuya Ogiwara in the 50th, hoping to find a way back but Bayern responded with two of their own in four minutes — through Kane and Olise — to restore order.
England captain Kane bagged his third and fourth goals with penalties in the 73rd and 78th while Leroy Sane added another in the 85th before fellow substitute Leon Goretzka headed in their record-breaking ninth.
Aston Villa made an impressive return to Europe's elite as they began their Champions League campaign with an accomplished 3-0 victory away to Swiss club Young Boys on Tuesday.
Youri Tielemans fired Villa in front in the 27th minute of their first game in Europe's top club competition for 41 years and the Premier League side dominated throughout.
Villa, European champions in 1982, doubled their advantage in the 38th minute with Jacob Ramsey tapping in from close range after terrible Young Boys defending.
The visitors had goals by Ollie Watkins and substitute Jhon Duran wiped off for handball but Amadou Onana drove in Villa's third to underline their superiority.
Real Madrid started their Champions League title defence with a hard-fought 3-1 home win over Stuttgart thanks to late goals by Antonio Ruediger and Endrick which cancelled out Deniz Undav's equaliser.
Reuters
