GENEVA, Sep 8: Too many lopsided mismatches displayed the wealth gap between clubs, fuelling competitive imbalance on the field.
Favoured Liverpool and Eintracht Frankfurt suffered heavy losses Wednesday.
Thomas Tuchel and Domenico Tedesco lost their jobs on the morning after shocking losses for Chelsea and Leipzig, respectively.
Liverpool slumped to a stunning 4-1 defeat at Napoli where the hosts were four goals up in just 47 minutes at the stadium named for club icon Diego Maradona. Though Jurgen Klopp’s team has been beaten in just four games in 2022, three were in the Champions League.
Eintracht won the Europa League title in May but the German club and the team it beat in the final, Rangers, both found it tough on returning to the top-tier competition after long absences. Eintracht was surprisingly beaten 3-0 at home by Sporting Lisbon four days after its four-goal rout of Leipzig in the Bundesliga sped up Tedesco’s exit.
Rangers was swept aside in the first half at Ajax before falling to a 4-0 loss.
Robert Lewandowski already tops the scoring chart after his Champions League debut for Barcelona, which beat Viktoria Plzen 5-1.
One night after Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland each scored twice in wins for their clubs Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, Lewandowski went one better with a hat trick.
Tottenham beat Marseille 2-0 with Brazil forward Richarlison twice scoring with headers late in the game on Champions League debut.
A remarkable 11-minute period of stoppage time at Atlético Madrid saw the home team open the scoring and be pegged back by a penalty for 10-man Porto before Antoine Griezmann sealed a 2-1 win with a header.
Bayern Munich eased to a 2-0 win at Inter Milan, where Leroy Sané opened the scoring in the first half, and Club Brugge beat struggling Bayer Leverkusen 1-0.
Two coach firings began the Champions League drama early Wednesday.
Tuchel was ousted at Chelsea just 15 months after he guided the club to its second Champions League title.
Tedesco lasted just nine months at Leipzig, a Champions League semi-finalist two years ago, and did not survive a humbling 4-1 home loss to Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday. (AP)
