There were some shocks for this 5th day of the Champions League, from the highly anticipated Arsenal-Bayern to Chelsea-Barcelona via OM-Newcastle and PSG-Tottenham. And it did not disappoint, far from it, with extraordinary performances on many lawns. But let’s start with perhaps one of the biggest surprises of this vintage, with the surprise victory of Bayer Leverkusen on the Manchester City pitch. A surprising success, which is as much due to Pep Guardiola’s bizarre choices in his starting line-up as to the excellent performances of the Dutch goalkeeper Mark Flekken and the Spanish left side Grimaldo.
The first turned out to be a wall, the second opened the scoring and displayed great technical mastery, which would not have been out of place in Guardiola’s team. To support them in defense, we offer a hinge full of vice and experience, with a Gimenez-David Luiz duo. Gimenez displayed its usual aggressiveness against Inter on Wednesday evening, and above all offered victory to Atlético de Madrid in the last minutes of the match. David Luizhe sent a splendid header against AS Monaco and won an excellent draw with his Cypriot club Pafos, where he is stretching out his great career at the age of 38. On the right side, how not to install the machine Jurrien Timberthat we don’t want any left winger to cross on the pitch. He also found the net against Bayern Munich. On a corner of course.
A 100% French attack
We continue, with a midfielder, who would undoubtedly be a starter anywhere in Europe. Necessarily, Vitinha is one of them, and his fabulous hat-trick against Tottenham has placed him among the best specialists in the position. And alongside him we choose Declan Riceauthor of a full match against Bayern Munich, the other ogre of the competition. Quality of foot, impact in duels, the English midfielder seems indestructible this season. Let’s now move on to the ball artists, with the Brazilian on the right wing who impresses everyone, Estêvão. Already compared to Neymar, he splashed his talent in the meeting between Chelsea and Barcelona, and scored his third goal this season in the Champions League.
On the left side, a ghost, with Ademola Lookman. Angry with Atalanta who did not want to let him go to Inter, the Nigerian is gradually returning to his best level and he delivered a great number yesterday on the pitch of Eintracht Frankfurt, notably with a goal to his credit. All we have to do now is give you the names of the two attackers chosen for this 4-4-2, and voila, we have bet on the inevitable Kylian Mbappéauthor of a quadruplet on the Olympiakos pitch to get Real Madrid out of the rut. And on Randal Kolo Muaniwho once again fulfilled the prophecy of the exes against PSG, by scoring a double, accompanied by a decisive pass. His best match at the Parc des Princes, but with the Tottenham jersey.
