Modest guests from the east

Shakhtar and Levski supported the red-whites

Spartak was not the only team from Eastern Europe to suffer a crushing defeat in the first round. Donetsk Shakhtar lost with the same score - 0:4, but to the Italian Roma, and the Bulgarian Levski was defeated by Barcelona - 0:5. Clubs that can hardly be considered among the European elite have made it into the group stage of the Champions League before, but behaved with dignity there. For example, the same Swiss “Thun” or the Slovakian “Artmedia” forced eminent rivals to respect themselves.

Group "A". By and large, no one doubted that the current Champions Cup holder Barcelona would begin its journey in the new edition with a victory. However, simply winning was not enough for Barca. The Catalans demonstrated the full power of their attack. Five goals were scored by different players: Iniesta and Giuly scored in the first half, Eto'o and Ronaldinho scored in the second, and almost all of them were graceful and spectacular. “I want to thank the opponents: the match turned out to be interesting,” said Barca head coach Frank Rijkaard without a hint of irony. “But I’m pleased with the big victory.” After all, because of the World Cup, our players began preparing for the season at different times, so we had to take into account their different levels of physical readiness.”

If this continues and the favorites continue to gain points, the confrontation between Barcelona and Chelsea, who find themselves in the same group, will not be too important. In any case, the English champions do not want to postpone solving their tournament problems for the matches with the Catalans and in the first round they very confidently beat Werder Bremen - 2:0. Although the German team had a chance of a draw. After Essien opened the scoring in the first half, Bremen striker Klose had the opportunity to equalize in the second half, but his shot hit the crossbar. The hopes of his compatriots were buried by Michael Ballack, who scored his first goal for Chelsea in the Champions League from the penalty spot. However, Blues head coach Jose Mourinho said that his team won with great difficulty. "The difference between a difficult match and an easy match is that in an easy match you don't get yellow cards because the game is quite soft, there is not a lot of pressure," Mourinho explained. -- Take a look at today's games: Barca have no yellow cards, Liverpool have no yellow cards, Bayern, Valencia and Roma have one each. "Chelsea have four warnings." Many of the coach’s statements were taken as a hint of some kind of pressure on his team from the judges.

In group “C” after the first round, nothing really changed. Both matches ended in goalless draws. Galatasaray could not win at home against Bordeaux, although at the end of the match they had a couple of chances, and Liverpool took one point from Endhoven, although in principle they could have counted on three: Steven Gerrard’s shot at the end of the match hit the crossbar. At the same time, Reds coach Rafael Benitez did not start either Gerrard, Javi Alonso, Peter Crouch or Sami Hyypia. “We must accept that no player can perform at 100% in every match. If a player is not fully ready, then he will be given a rest, as happened today,” Benitez explained his seemingly strange tactical move. But apparently, for Liverpool, the upcoming Sunday match with Chelsea is more important than the Champions League.

The average performance that had fallen after these goalless draws was corrected in group “D” . A special role in this was played by Valencia forward Fernando Morientes, thanks to whose hat-trick the “bats” won in Greece for the first time in their history. The local Olympiacos was beaten 4:2, but the victory was not easy for Valencia - the winning goal was scored by the Spaniards only in the 85th minute.

Roma players also scored four goals against Shakhtar. But again everything was decided only at the end of the match. Before Totti scored the second goal in the 76th minute, the Ukrainian team, which included only two Ukrainians, had crumbled. “The result is not based on the game,” Shakhtar head coach Mircea Lucescu could only say. - We were better than Roma for two thirds of the match. Totti decided everything. We held him back for an hour, but then he did whatever he wanted.”

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Champions League. 1st round. Group "A". Chelsea - Werder - 2:0 ( Essien 24, Ballack 68 pen. ), Barcelona - Levski - 5:0 (Iniesta 7, Giuly 39, Puyol 49, Eto'o 58, Ronaldinho 90) . Group "B". Sporting - Inter - 1:0 (Caneira 64) , Bayern - Spartak - 4:0 (C. Pizarro 48, Santa Cruz 52, Schweinsteiger 71, Salihamidzic 84) . Group "C". Galatasaray - Bordeaux - 0:0, PSV - Liverpool - 0:0. Group "D". "Roma" - "Shakhtar" - 4:0 (Taddei 66, Totti 76, De Rossi 79, D. Pizarro 89 ), "Olympiacos" - "Valencia" - 2:4 (Konstantinou 28, Castillo 66 - - Morientes 33, 39, 90, Albiol 86) .

Andrey VDOVIN