Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain while Real Madrid maintained their perfect group stage records in an interesting night of Champions League football.
PSG were very impressive, thrashing Anderlecht 5-0 in Belgium as Zlatan Ibrahimović scored a brilliant 20-minute hat-trick. Ibra went onto become only the 11th player to score four or more in a Champions League game. PSG, who are now five points clear of Benfica and Olympiacos after they drew 1-1 in Lisbon, can wrap up qualification by beating Anderlecht at home in two weeks.
Ibrahimović’s four goals took him to six for the season in the Champions League, but that still trails Cristiano Ronaldo, who has seven after scoring both as Real Madrid defeated Juventus 2-1. That result allowed Galatasaray to jump ahead of Antonio Conte’s side thanks to a a 3-1 victory over Copenhagen at home. It is looking like Juventus are going to have to either beat Real Madrid at home or win in Turkey is they are to progress to the knockout stages.
I did not think that Bayern Munich could play any better than last years treble winning team had, but Pep Guardiola is proving me wrong as Bayern thumped Plzen 5-0 thanks to two goals from Franck Ribéry and one apiece for David Alaba, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mario Götze. In the other game in Group D, Manchester City came from behind to beat CSKA Moscow 2-1 thanks to two goals from Sergio Agüero. If Manuel Pellegrini can repeat that performance in two weeks at home, then they will be almost assured of reaching the knockout stages for the first time in their history.
Over in the red side of Manchester, there was some good news for David Moyes as they beat Real Sociedad to move a point ahead of Bayer Leverkusen in the group, who surprisingly beat Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0.
