Real Madrid have scored some fantastic team goals tonight.
Weird that AC Milan sit 2nd in Serie A and haven’t managed a UCL point yet.
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They were pretty unlucky not to get at least draw in Madrid. Just going by some casual side viewing of the goals show tonight they’ve not shown one attacking replay for Milan though, seems like they were well beaten even though it ended 1-0.
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Mbappe dived on that first pen. He’s better than that.
They love good goals at that ground.
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Sheriff arrested by Inter 
Wow, some absolute thumpings handed out today.
WTH happened to Dortmund?!?
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Weirdly I said I bet Milan lose in Porto.
Just seemed obvious.
says a lot about the quality of the Italian Serie A. The same AC Milan is unbeaten in the Serie A.
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To be fair, Milan was very close to a win over Atletico, leading 1-0 at 84’ having played near an hour with ten men. Losing 2-1 sort of broke them.
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they did play well for 10 minutes or so against us too , but their defense is too shoddy
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They’re a young team. For reasons I’ve never quite figured out, the learning curve seems to be steeper in the CL than it is even in a top domestic league where the competition might even be higher. Maybe it’s to do with the ability to maintain quality and focus that often? Maybe its the traveling?
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I think we also underesimate Porto. Porto are probably not as bad as results against a team like Liverpool (one of Europe’s best sides in last years) suggest. But we may think they are, only watching them when we play them and we always beat them. They have fresh experience in the CL. Milan don’t. It’s not such a shock when a today’s Milan lose away to a today’s Porto. We were also a great club with not a great team, when we went out of an easier group in 2014 than this one Milan has. Basel and Ludogorets, dear me. We’ll see what Milan do, but it’s objectivelly a tough one to return to the CL.
Plus, Milan had a number of players missing last night.
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I know these guys are professional footballers, but I cannot imagine it being easy to travel to Portugal and play at a foreign stadium at 8pm on a weeknight. it’s difficult for a player to accumulate a lot of European experience when you only get 6 knockout games a season.
While I think that is true, that would suggest that home field advantage would explain most of the difference - and while it does explain a lot (home wins just under 50%, with draw and visitors win splitting the rest), there is definitely something else going on as well. Teams that struggle home and away are not that uncommon, and not just due to the minnow effect.
I think your basic point about experience applies for home games too. Playing a first rate side that you have never seen before presents a significant new challenge.
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I think about Wenger’s Arsenal. Took him only his second year to turn Arsenal from also rans to winners of a competitive Prem. But took them 5-6 years to get to grips with being even competitive in the CL losing repeatedly to sides who were objectively not as good as they were. Admittedly the KO stage was smaller then, but Arsenal routinely missed it by a big margin in those early years.
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Italian sides generally have been pretty crap in the CL for a while now, bar that little spell when Juventus reached a few finals. Napoli and Inter have tended to underperform when they’ve made it in recent years. Juventus have started to get knocked out by teams that you’d think would be well below their level. Lazio and Roma never really pose much of a threat. Atalanta are probably the team that have punched above their weight in making some quarter finals and have put the others to shame a bit when you consider their comparative resources.
Not many games tonight that jump out as being particularly interesting other than United/Atalanta which could be a bit of a goal fest. Expect United to win despite their recent troubles against an opponent that will offer up plenty of chances.
Just saw Salzburg’s 3rd goal, it’s as if time was frozen for the Wolfsburg’s players. So strange.
Barca keeping that Europa League dream alive.
Apparently only Pique has scored for Barca besides Messi in the CL since December 2020. 