The third round of the Champions League features two heavyweight clashes, the first between the French first football team Paris Saint-Germain, the title holder, and the Spanish Barcelona on Tuesday, and the second between the German Bayern Munich and the English runner-up Arsenal on Wednesday.
Rising performance for Paris and Barcelona
After a relatively shaky start to the season, Paris Saint-Germain, champion of the past two seasons, began to regain its rhythm. Its 3-1 win over Strasbourg on Saturday, after trailing in the score, marked its sixth consecutive victory across all competitions. Once again, its Spanish coach Luis Enrique rested several key players.
None of these victories were more impressive than the 4-2 win over English Manchester City in the second round, which extended their unbeaten streak in the Champions League to 12 matches (8 wins and 4 draws), bringing them just one match away from their record set in 2013. Saint-Germain leads the unified group and appears to be on track to write a new chapter in its history.
For its part, Barcelona achieved 11 wins in 11 matches this season after thrashing Real Betis 5-2 on Saturday, equaling a record by scoring at least three goals in nine consecutive matches. Barcelona also set a new Champions League record by scoring four or more goals in four consecutive matches in the group stage or league phase.
Absences and individual impacts
It is no surprise that German coach Hansi Flick has the best scoring rate per match (3 goals) among all Barcelona coaches who have led the team in five or more Champions League matches, but he also has the worst rate of goals conceded (1.6 goals per match). Barcelona suffers from a record streak of 17 consecutive matches without keeping a clean sheet in the tournament.
The two teams share the results of their previous 16 meetings equally, with six wins each and four draws. Ousmane Dembele scored in the two matches he played against his former club Barcelona since his transfer to Saint-Germain. He also scored in six consecutive Champions League matches, equaling the record for a French player.
As for Lamine Yamal, he aims to become the second player in the history of the competition to create at least two goals in three consecutive matches. His tally of 12 goals in the tournament during his teenage years comes only behind Kylian Mbappe (13 goals). The Catalan club plays the match without its French international defenders Jules Kounde and Eric Garcia due to an ankle injury to the former and a thigh injury to the latter, while Portuguese left-back Nuno Mendes is absent due to a thigh injury.
Bayern and Arsenal clash and other matches
The Bavarian giant aims to kill two birds with one stone on Wednesday at its stadium, the Allianz Arena, by avenging its disappointing draw against its host Viking of Norway (3-3), and then taking revenge on Arsenal. The London club had defeated Bayern 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium last November in the fifth round of the unified group stage.
Bayern enters the match buoyed by a crushing 6-1 win over Leipzig, while the Gunners struggled to beat Nottingham Forest 1-0. The Gunners have a distinctive record in this stage, having suffered only two defeats in their last 32 matches in the group stage.
Divergent results for Liverpool and Real Madrid
After two big away wins, Anfield will host a new hot European evening when Liverpool meets its guest Villarreal. Liverpool regained its balance well after the heavy home defeat to Manchester City 0-3 in the league, where it beat its host LASK of Austria 6-3 in continental play and Brentford 2-1 domestically.
As for Villarreal, it entered its last match against Italian Napoli after losing seven consecutive matches in the Champions League. However, the team made a wonderful comeback and turned a deficit into a 3-1 win. Spanish Real Madrid aims to exploit home and crowd factors to achieve its third consecutive victory when it faces the wounded German Leipzig.
The royal club achieved a thrilling comeback against Rome, turning a 1-3 deficit into a 4-3 win by scoring a hat-trick in the last seven minutes of regular time at the Olympic Stadium. Manchester City has a chance to regain balance after the harsh loss to Saint-Germain (2-4) in the previous round, when it hosts Greek AEK Athens on Tuesday.
Source: Arriyadiyah newspaper
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