Get caught up with the best that the UEFA Champions, Europa, and Conference Leagues had to offer in their most recent matchdays with our latest European Week in Review.
Only three rounds of matches remain in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, with two in the Conference League, and we are truly entering the business end of proceedings.
This is your Urban Pitch European Week in Review, and as customary, here are the best games, most interesting storylines, and top moments from this week’s continental competitions all in one place.
Best of Tuesday
Bayern 1-0 PSG: PSG’s era of European obscurity won’t end anytime soon.
Barcelona 3-0 Brest: The Blaugrana place themselves firmly amongst the favorites.
Sporting 1-5 Arsenal: No Amorim, no party.
Best of Wednesday
AS Monaco 2-3 Benfica: Two late goals from substitutes hand Monaco their first loss of this season.
Aston Villa 0-0 Juventus: A questionable last-minute call robs Villa of all three points.
Red Star 5-1 Stuttgart: 29% possession, 5-1 victory. What?!
Best of Thursday
Fiorentina 3-2 Pafos FC: Fiorentina make it 10 wins in 11 games.
Tottenham 2-2 Roma: An absolute thriller in London as Roma rescue a point late.
Manchester United 3-2 Bodø/Glimt: Amorim’s in-game adjustments win him his home debut.
Game of the Week: Manchester City vs. Feyenord
For the second week running, Manchester City find themselves featured in the illustrious Urban Pitch game of the week, and for the second week running, it’s for all the wrong reasons.
Pep Guardiola entered this fixture in the midst of the worst run in his illustrious managerial career. Five losses on the spin had City in the dumps, but a home UCL fixture against middle-of-the-pack Feyenoord seemed like a typical tap-in for the Citizens and the perfect game for a bounce back. There is nothing typical about this iteration of Pep’s City, however.
The struggles post-Rodri injury have been spoken about ad nauseam. The English champions have looked spineless and far too easy to play through, and their ruthlessness in front of goal have also gone missing, coinciding with Erling Haaland’s dip in form. All that looked to be put behind them in a first half which saw them dominate proceedings, ending with a Haaland penalty lashed into the net.
The second half began and within five minutes, City doubled their lead with an Ilkay Gundogan deflected strike, before Haaland had his brace on their next meaningful attack. After an hour played with City 3-0 up at home, many would’ve switched the TV off in anticipation of the hosts cruising to an easy win. But this couldn’t have been further from the case. It took Feyenoord 15 minutes to stage a massive comeback, with a bevy of Manchester City errors helping their cause.
'I want to harm myself' 👀 Pep asked about the cuts on his nose and head pic.twitter.com/VQVCQ9brzy
— BeanymanSports (@BeanymanSports) November 26, 2024
As we’ve established, this is not your typical Pep Guardiola team, and when put into difficult situations, their tendency recently has been to fold massively – and fold they did.
The post-match interview from Pep has done the rounds, his face red and cut, all his own doing; the perfect visualization of his current team’s situation. They can’t stop shooting themselves in the foot.
Top Storyline, Champions League: Big Names in Serious Trouble
Football is so hard to predict. In week two of our reviews, the top storyline for the UCL was the top teams showing a clear disparity between them and the rest of the field. As things stand, so many of the clubs that were backed to perform brilliantly, and benefit from their greater resources and bigger squads have left much to be desired.
Most notable is undoubtedly the poor form of the Champions Real Madrid. Two wins from five, nine goals conceded, and as things stand, they find themselves in 24th place, teetering on the precipice of missing the knockout phase entirely. The team on the other side of the cut-off line is PSG in 25th, and while they certainly were not expected to be as good after the loss of Kylian Mbappe, being this bad in the UCL was never in the playbook.
It seems like a cruel twist of fate, but after the biggest and most anticipated transfer in the last few seasons, both teams that lost and gained the services of Mbappe seem worse off than where they began.
We can’t speak about underwhelming UCL performances without mentioning RB Leipzig though. They are one of only three teams that have yet to register a single point despite currently flying high in third on the Bundesliga table. The single caveat for Leipzig is that they have probably had the most difficult stretch of games to open the tournament of anyone. Liverpool, Atletico, and Inter are all performing brilliantly; but to call their losses to Celtic and Juventus (blowing a lead to 10 men) disappointing would be a gross understatement.
While they are not mathematically eliminated yet, it would take an act of God to see the Germans go through.
Top Storyline, Europa League: An Undefeated Septet
For the Europa League this week, not much has changed. The teams at the top of the table have continued to show out, and first through fifth have all yet to lose. Lazio remain at the top, but lost their perfect record after a 0-0 draw with Ludogorets this week, while Athletic Club and Frankfurt continued their red-hot form as they both made it four wins in a row in Europe.
Every week, the Europa League provides at least one fixture that serves to highlight just how tight things are — this week we had two. First, it was Ajax being handed their first loss by Real Sociedad, who moved up to 16th as a result, while Porto, who continued to struggle in 23rd, held fifth-place Anderlecht to a 0-0 draw.
Manchester United and FC Viktoria Plzeň both sit on two wins and three draws, and their refusal to lose will be a massive boost as they both continue to push for automatic qualification.
Top Storyline, UEFA Conference League: Polish Excellence
A glance at the Conference League table will show Legia Warszawa as the only team thus far to have matched Chelsea’s 100% record. However, what makes matters more impressive is the fact that the Polish side has yet to concede a single goal through four games, the only side to do so. Chelsea’s astounding 18 goals mean they are still top on goal difference, but Legia definitely deserve just as many plaudits.
They’re not the only team making Poland proud though. Defending Polish champions Jagiellonia Białystok follow their counterparts very closely as they sit third in the league. A first-half missed penalty and an own goal conceded in the last 10 minutes of their 3-3 draw this week against Slovenian side NK Celje were the differences keeping the Poles from joining the aforementioned top two in a perfect start.
With 10 goals scored and just four conceded in their opening four games, you’d certainly back Jagiellonia to maintain this form into the knockouts; and we could see both of Poland’s representatives make a big splash in the next phase.
Best Moments of the Week
Defending Champs Go Down in Anfield
Liverpool are the talk of the UEFA Champions League this season and for good reason. They’ve now played Milan, Bologna, Leipzig, Leverkusen, and now the defending champions Real Madrid — earning 15 points from a possible 15. Unfortunately for Reds fans though, the focus here will be Los Blancos.
Despite continuing to push Barça closely in the league, Madrid just cannot seem to find their mojo in Europe. Where last season Jude Bellingham was setting the world alight, this season he has yet to break his European duck. Overall, they look like a team bereft of ideas when they enter the final third, and outside of Vinicius Jr.’s four goals this campaign, the only other player with more than one goal is center back Antonio Rudiger.
The Mbappe issue is another major talking point. He has yet to set the world alight in Galactico white, and Wednesday was a huge opportunity missed by the Frenchman. In a game crying out for a Madrid player to step up and grab it by the scruff of the neck, Mbappe let the fixture pass him by. To make matters worse he passed up on the golden opportunity to bring his team back into proceedings from the penalty spot with his team trailing 1-0 at the time.
Class is permanent as we always say, and I am by no means writing him off as a Madrid player despite a large portion of social media already attempting to do so. Nevertheless, it needs to turn around for Mbappe, and fast. With Vini Jr. out injured, there is even more pressure on his shoulders, and how quickly he can rediscover his world-beating form is sure to be the difference in Madrid’s bid to keep hold of their European crown.
Malik Tillman Leads an Epic Comeback
Liverpool will snatch all the headlines, but the events that unfolded at the Philips Stadion on Wednesday night need to be spoken about.
Up until the 70th minute of this game, it looked set to be an all-time smash-and-grab from Shakhtar Donetsk. First-half goals from Danylo Sikan and Oleksandr Zubkov saw them leading 2-0 at the break despite having virtually any control of proceedings.
The major turning point came when Pedrinho was given his marching orders for a horrific challenge on Johan Bakayoko. What was already a glorified attack vs. defense drill before the sending-off became a goalkeeper training session for Shakhtar’s Dmytro Riznyk, who would end the night on 15 saves.
His defiance would finally come to an end in the 87th minute, when Malik Tillman’s free kick snuck in at the near post. What followed was an other-worldly ending. Tillman brought his team back from the brink singlehandedly as his second goal flew in from 30-plus yards in stoppage time. Then in the final minute of stoppage time, fellow American Ricardo Pepi smuggled home a winner for PSV.
Three goals in eight minutes to snatch victory from the jaws of what would have been an undeserved defeat; who said momentum isn’t real?
As Things Stand, Champions League
League Leaders: Liverpool (+11 goal differential)
Top Scorer: Robert Lewandowski (7)
Assist Leader: Mohamed Salah (5)
Bottom of the table: Young Boys
As Things Stand, Europa League
League Leaders: Lazio (+9 goal differential)
Top Scorer: Barnabás Varga (5)
Assist Leader: Dries Mertens (4)
Bottom of the table: Dynamo Kyiv
As Things Stand, Conference League
League Leaders: Chelsea (+15 goal differential)
Top Scorer: Christopher Nkunku (5)
Assist Leader: Kevin Denkey (3)
Bottom of the table: Larne FC
