ONE TOUCH SUMMARY
- Barcelona opened the league phase with a 5-1 win over Feyenoord, Lamine Yamal scoring a scruffy free-kick.
- Troy Parrott scored for Real Betis at Lille, adding to his winner against Real Madrid last weekend.
- Michael Olise scored twice as Bayern Munich hit five second-half goals past Bodø/Glimt.
ONE TOUCH INSIGHT
José Mourinho has had one Champions League night back at the Bernabéu and he has already indicted his own midfield. A 2-1 win over Inter became a lament: it could have been 7-6, the centre was weak, he had little to work with. Those comments were read as aimed at Trent Alexander-Arnold, one of the trio, and they landed after Raúl had used Movistar's airtime to criticise him first. The Bernabéu made clear that better is expected. Three points, and a manager already building a siege.
Troy Parrott is the counterweight. Rejected by Mourinho as a Spurs teenager, he scored the winner against Real Madrid last weekend, then dragged in a left-footed finish as Betis took a 3-2 lead at Lille and held it. Choosing Andalusia over leading West Ham in the Championship looks sharper by the week.
Mourinho's second-round trip takes him back to Roma, more than a month away after the elongated international break, and whether he is still in that dugout for it is not a formality. The check: which of that midfield trio starts at the Olimpico.
WHY IT MATTERS
The expanded league phase now frames every elite club's season, and early wins shape the mood around new regimes, from Mourinho's instant scrutiny at Real Madrid to Barcelona's pursuit of a crown last lifted in 2015.
Lamine Yamal
RW
Spain
Strengths
- ✓Already a European and world champion with Spain at senior international level.
- ✓Scored against Feyenoord, converting a scruffy free-kick to get on the scoresheet.
- ✓Operates on the right of an all-star Barcelona attack alongside Raphinha and Gabriel Jesus.
- ✓Anointed as Messi's successor and expected to deliver on the Champions League stage.
- ⚠Can he sustain output and fitness across a long league phase where opponents will target him physically?
- ⚠Can he carry the weight of being billed as the man to end Barcelona's Champions League wait since 2015?
TACTICAL FIT
Yamal gives Barcelona a right-sided creator who can drift inside, and against Feyenoord the scoring load spread across Raphinha, Gabriel Jesus and Yamal, showing Flick's attack does not depend on one source.
THE DEBATE
Is Lamine Yamal already Barcelona's most important player, ahead of the veterans?
Troy Parrott (Real Betis), José Mourinho (Real Madrid) and Michael Olise (Bayern Munich) all saw their teams begin Champions League play with wins. Composite: Guardian Pictures; Reuters; AP; Uefa/Getty Images
Champions League review: Irish heroics, rejected resignations and Mourinho’s return
The league phase has begun. From Olise’s brilliance to Sabah’s pub cleaner turned quiz contestant turned manager, there was plenty to talk about
Fri 11 Sep 2026 08.30 EDT Last modified on Fri 11 Sep 2026 08.31 EDT
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A big week for
The league phase has been previewed as Barcelona’s first step toward reclaiming a crown last lifted in 2015, with disappointments aplenty since. Lionel Messi claiming just one Champions League title in the last decade of his time at Camp Nou is the starkest statistic. The player anointed as Messi’s successor, Lamine Yamal, is already a European and world champion for Spain, so this is the next frontier. A soggy Wednesday evening at Camp Nou saw Hansi Flick’s team show their attacking chops remain of the highest quality in a 5-1 defeat of Feyenoord. The club presidential regime of Joan Laporta continues to pull levers to confound financial experts, with Gabriel Jesus, one of the summer’s arrivals, scoring his first Barca goal. Yamal got on the scoresheet via a scruffy free-kick after Raphinha had reminded there are further dimensions to that all-star attack, his first goal of his pair two sending Feyenoord defenders skidding.
Men’s Ballon d’Or 2026 power rankings: will there be an English winner for the first time in 25 years? Read moreUntil Troy Parrott headed to Seville this summer, the chances of Real Betis v Lille being a leading attraction to the Irish diaspora were minimal. But now the team in green and white have become an Irish obsession. The goalscorer in their World Cup playoff win in Hungary last year is approaching national hero status. Opting for Andalusia instead of leading West Ham in the Championship confirmed him as a player with broad horizons; the former Tottenham trainee is hitting the heights in La Liga. Having scored the winner against Real Madrid last weekend, throwing back to José Mourinho his rejection when a Spurs teenager, he delivered again in northern France. His dragged, left-footed finish grabbed a 3-2 lead Betis successfully held. “I don’t think I’ll ever have a better night in my whole life,” Parrott said of his glory night in Budapest. If that still holds true, his Friday and Tuesday will have gone close to emulating it.
Weird scenes after Fenerbahce’s 1-1 draw with Roma when Ismail Kartal, the Turkish club’s veteran coach, resigned post-match “to clear the way”. The drama was heightened when the Fenerbahce president, Aziz Yildirim, said he would not be accepting the resignation. “There’s no need for him to say that he’d continue,” Yildirim said. “I am his senior, I told him to continue and that’s it. We are a family.” The explanation given for such a sudden exit was Kartal’s annoyance at a bottle being lobbed in his direction. Watch this space.
Player of the week
Ballon D’Or season is upon us, and a leading nominee must be Bayern’s brilliant Michael Olise, who scored two goals against Bodø/Glimt. The Norwegians attempted to aggressively mark him but were left with twisted blood as his team scored five second-half goals. The Frenchman gave a typically dry post-match interview. Asked how it feels to score great goals, he said: “I don’t know … I just shoot and it goes in.”
Club in focus
Manchester United on Thursday faced a club formed in 2017, three years after Luke Shaw, who missed the game, was signed. Sabah, Azerbaijan’s champions last season, breaking the dominance of Qurban Qurbanov’s Qarabag, are coached by Valdas Dambrauskas, a former United soccer schools and Brentford youth coach who also worked as a pub cleaner and gardener in the UK. His journey from Lithuania to Manchester was funded by a win on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, where he walked away from Vilnius’s equivalent of Regis Philbin with a sum commensurate with a year’s salary. The homecoming was not too happy as United were ready 4-0 winners, Youri Tielemans and Bruno Fernandes in particular turning on the style. “He absolutely destroyed us,” Dambrauskas said of Fernandes. That did not bode well for Sabah’s matches ahead: Dortmund, Barcelona and Napoli travel to Azerbaijan, while a trip to Arsenal awaits.
They said it
“There’s a lot of criticism when a match is boring, but it was crazy today. . … It could easily have ended 7-6. Our midfield was weak, they made changes very early, and I didn’t have much to work with in the centre of the pitch. … I agree with Raul that the goals came as a result of their errors.” José Mourinho’s Real Madrid return is already under scrutiny, and before being interviewed on Movistar after a close-run 2-1 defeat of Inter, he had to listen to on-air criticism from Raúl González, a Madrileno legend. Those midfield comments appeared directed at Trent Alexander-Arnold, who played as one of the trio on a night where fans at the Santiago Bernabéu made clear that better is expected.
Champions League: Bayern break down Bodø/Glimt, Como put four past Leipzig Read more
Looking ahead
The other side of an elongated international break, the wait will be long – more than a month – for the second round of matches. Holders Paris Saint-Germain, looking for their third straight title, travelling to Manchester City is the grand-slam fixture. Enzo Maresca has made a decent fist of succeeding Pep Guardiola, with four wins in four. Erling Haaland’s pair of goals at Porto took him to 167, third on his club’s all-time scorers’ list, 10 behind Eric Brook, who played his last game during the second world war.
Mourinho, should he remain in charge at Real Madrid, will return to Roma while Manchester United travel to Atlético Madrid, who knocked out United in the last 16 in 2021-22, their only previous meeting in the competition.
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