UEFA Champions League: City equalize late, Real Madrid win comfortably

It was painful to hear the studio analysis. Do Borussia Dortmund always play this well? Has Marco Reus always been this spectacular? Why aren’t Manchester City winning? We had, in fact, seen this story before. A year ago, City failed to advance out of a group containing both Bayern Munich and Serie A side SSC Napoli thanks to their performances against the latter. The third place finish was greeted with shock, then chalked off to inexperience. Next time, Manchester City would be ready.

Apparently nobody learned their lesson.

Well that was a shock. Schalke threw away what should have been an easy lead last weekend against Fortuna Dusseldorf, and they did exactly the same at home to Montpellier to lose their place at the top of UEFA Champions League Group B.

Schalke deserved the lead, and they’d get it in the second half. Draxler made it happen, dodging through a host of white shirts before being clipped from behind in the penalty area by Garry Bocaly and ploughing into Geoffrey Jourden. Bocaly got a deserved red charge for the challenge, but Draxler paid a very high price for the slick move -- he was forced off the pitch and taken to hospital with a suspected fractured forearm.

Dynamo Kiev are probably not getting out of Group A, but they managed to keep things at least mildly interesting for FC Porto and Paris Saint-Germain by putting together a comfortable 2-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday. The match was more or less over before it started, and Dinamo were never in it.

Ognjen Vukojević set up Oleg Gusev for the opening goal just three minutes into the match, with a cross into the center of the box that Gusev headed in. Dynamo Kiev took control of the match after that and their visitors never really threatened to score.

It appears that Schalke may be losing Julian Draxler for an extended period of time. The young midfielder was injured Wednesday night in Schalke’s 2-2 draw against Montpellier in the Champions League.

Draxler, 19, was taken to the hospital before the match was concluded with a suspected fractured forearm. Until the severity of the injury is known, it’s too early to know exactly how long he’ll be out of action.

Don’t let the 1-0 scoreline fool you, FC Porto dominated Paris Saint-German at the Estádio do Dragão. It was 21-year-old James Rodríguez’s wonder strike that won it, but it could have been much, much worse for Carlo Ancelotti’s side.

How dominate were Porto? They out shot a solid offensive PSG side 20-6.

Málaga continued their fantastic start to the season with another 3-0 victory in the Champions League, this time on the road over Anderlect. A brace from Eliseu and a converted penalty by Joaquín were the difference as Manuel Pellegrini’s side were excellent.

Málaga dominated the first half, having most of the ball and out shooting Anderlecht 7-3. The Danish side didn’t even have a shot on target during the half. Despite all that, it looked like the match would go to the locker room scoreless until Málaga earned a corner in first half stoppage time that finally led to them breaking through.

All of the action in the first half was in Vermeer’s box as Madrid flew forward with every opportunity. Most of the visitors’ moves forward came through Ronaldo, who was tremendous. He was able to get down the left, as well as cut in and have a go at goal. Twice he looked like a sure bet to score, only to be denied by Vermeer, and another time he missed the frame after Vermeer fell. Kaka also had a golden opportunity, which was created by Ronaldo, but he hit the ball right at Vermeer.

After spending much of the first 30 minutes of play walking the ball around and feeling each other out, things sprung to life in the final 15 minutes of the first half between Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund. Roman Weidenfeller was forced into multiple saves, but it was Dortmund who had the best chance of the half, with a İlkay Gündoğan shot that hit the crossbar.

There’s no score at halftime in the Estádio do Dragão between FC Porto and PSG. FC Porto were the aggressor in the first half, but their wastefulness in front of goal could come back to haunt them.

Other than that moment of near greatness, Porto were dominate playing most of the game in PSG’s half and coming close on several occasions. The fact it’s scoreless at halftime is a compliment to Sirigu and an indictment of Porto’s less than precise finishing.

Borussia Dortmund’s lineup features one minor surprise, though it shouldn’t be too stunning that Jürgen Klopp has opted for athleticism over experience. Captain Sebastian Kehl will start the match on the bench, and Sven Bender will start in his place.

Borussia Dortmund lineup (4-2-3-1): Roman Weidenfeller; Marcel Schmelzer, Mats Hummels, Neven Subotić, Łukasz Piszczek; Sven Bender, İlkay Gündoğan; Mario Götze, Marco Reus, Jakub Błaszczykowski; Robert Lewandowski

Zenit were the much better side for the final 20 minutes of the first half and they carried that over into the second half. On a beautiful corner by Hulk, Roman Shirokov headed past Abbiati to give Zenit a deserved equalizer. They pushed forward for a winner, but the rest of the second half was mostly even.

Between then and the break, Abbiati was forced into three world class saves, and he had to make five in total during the half. At the end of the half, Zenit finally broke through, with Hulk punching in a finish from close range, assisted by a Roman Shirokov ball to the far post.

Zenit St Petersburg spent big money in the summer transfer window to help hulk up their lineup just for the Champions League. It didn’t help in the first round of matches as the Russians got hammered by Malaga. As for Milan, their troubles are well documented and even though they drew against Anderlecht, it’s not the kind of results they are used to. Hence the importance of today’s match.

Zenit have both their big summer signings in the lineup with Hulk up top and Axel Witsel back after missing the Malaga match due to an injury. The midfield remains thin with Sergei Semak unavailable and Igor Densiov in the dog club’s dog house.

New Dynamo Kiev boss Oleg Blokhin will be looking to get off to a good start in his new job when his side take on Dinamo Zagreb at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium tonight.

The Ukraine national team manager replaced Yuri Semin after a poor run of results from Dynamo, including a 4-1 thumping at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain. Dynamo will be favourites to prevail, but both teams have a poor European record (both have just one win in their last ten matches each) and anything could happen.

FC Porto take on Paris Saint-Germain in one of the most enticing games of the round and one that is sure to have a huge say in who finished top of Group A.

Both teams won their initial matches comfortably and will have high hopes of going through as Group champions, but PSG have a hard task in getting past a Porto side that have a fearsome home record in Europe, losing only to Manchester United and Manchester City in the past four years. Porto have only ever lost one Champions League game against French opponents - although that was to PSG, in 2004.

Arsenal face what should be a relatively straightforward home encounter against Olympiakos as they seek progess from group B.

Arsenal injuries and suspensions