Spanish and German soccer royalty to clash in Champions League – Winston-Salem Journal

A rematch of last season’s final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund headlines Tuesday before Barcelona host Bayern Munich on Wednesday in the next chapter of what has been a fairly one-sided rivalry in Europe’s biggest club competition.

All four teams have been European champions for the past 30 years and have made a mixed start in this season’s revamped format.

Dortmund won both of their opening games – 3-0 at Club Brugge and 7-1 at home to Celtic – to be early leaders and top scorers in the league stage, in which all 36 teams play eight games: four at home and four away .

Just like last season, when they reached the Champions League final against the odds before losing to Madrid, Dortmund have been far more impressive in Europe than in the Bundesliga. Indeed, after beating Celtic, Dortmund lost to Union Berlin four days later.

Meanwhile, Madrid suffered a shock 1-0 defeat at Lille, the defending champions’ first defeat in the competition since the semi-finals in the 2022-23 season.

Indeed, the second round of fixtures produced several shockers, including Bayern’s 1-0 loss to Aston Villa to end their unbeaten run under new coach Vincent Kompany.

Bayern now head to Barcelona in search of a seventh straight win in their head-to-head, a run that included a humiliating 8-2 loss to Barca in the quarter-finals in 2020. Hansi Flick was in charge of Bayern that night and is now Barcelona’s coach.

If Manchester City beat Sparta Prague at home on Wednesday, the English champions will set a record for consecutive unbeaten matches in the competition’s history – even dating back to the pre-1992 European Cup era.

City are currently on a 25-match unbeaten run, level with Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United side from 2007-09.

The last loss for Pep Guardiola’s side in the Champions League was a 3-1 defeat by Real Madrid in the second leg of the 2022 semi-finals, which cost City a place in that season’s final.

Since then, City have won 17 games and drawn eight, winning the competition in 2022-23 and being eliminated on penalties by Madrid in 2023-24 after back-to-back quarter-final draws.

Of the seven teams with the maximum six points, Brest is undoubtedly the most surprising.

It is the unknown French side’s European debut – in any competition – after an unexpected third-place finish in Ligue 1 last season. It couldn’t have gone any better.

A 2-1 win over Austrian champions Sturm Graz was followed by a 4-0 win over another Austrian team, Salzburg, in the second round of fixtures.

They will be the easiest opponents that Brest will face. Now the hard work begins, with German champions Bayer Leverkusen next up on Wednesday.

Leverkusen will not head to Brest, a beautiful port city in Brittany, and Guingham, some 114 kilometers (71 miles) away. This is because Brest’s stadium does not meet UEFA standards, so its home games were moved.

With each team playing eight games in the new league system, starting with back-to-back losses isn’t the nightmare start it would have been in the old format, when there were six games per side in the group stage.

However, AC Milan, Leipzig, Girona, Salzburg, Sturm Graz, Slovan Bratislava, Young Boys and Red Star Belgrade will all be desperate to get at least one point in the third round of fixtures.

Salzburg and Young Boys haven’t even scored.

One of the eight no-nonsense teams is sure to go off the mark, with tournament newcomers Girona hosting Slovan Bratislava on Tuesday.

Leipzig could easily be on zero points after three games, however, with Liverpool away on Wednesday – a game that has more intrigue after former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was signed as head of world football at Red Bull, whose international network of clubs includes Leipzig.