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Elsewhere in Europe, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City both ensured that they also earned all three points against Greek outfit Olympiakos Piraeus and Czech side Viktoria Plzen respectively.
This left PSG and the Citizens top of their respective groups. The former shares the number one spot in Group C with Benfica while Man United’s city rivals are joint leaders in Group D with Bayern Munich.
Manchester City’s 3-0 win over CSKA Moscow – with second half goals in the span of ten minutes from Edin Džeko, Yaya Touré, and Sergio Agüero – does not reflect the hardship they went through. There was certainly quite a bit of added pressure on Manuel Pelligrini’s men going into this match.
And, up until the 48th minute, it looked like City were heading for, at the best, a draw, or at the worst, to continue to experience disappointing results away from their home ground. But after 90 minutes of action, their supporters can at least relax a bit ahead of their crunch match with Bayern in a few weeks’ time.
In fact, with defending champions Bayern in the group, the Citizens cannot afford to play below their standard in Europe. As you can see, Manchester City have not only failed to qualify for the knockout rounds for the past two seasons, but their away form has been quite dismal, to say the least. This pre-match fact was resounding in the heads of the English billionaires before the Plzen game:
PSG also made some inroads of their own with their convincing 4-1 defeat of Olympiakos, which saw new big-money signing Edinson Cavani open his Champions League account in the 19th minute.
This was followed by the hosts equalizing through Vladimir Weiss just six minutes later. But, Les Parisiens’ superiority began to really come through in the second half, when midfielder Thiago Motta grabbed himself a double and new Brazilian youngster Marquinhos also found the net to literally rise head and shoulders above their opponents. PSG's aerial strenght was exhibited:
Shockingly, though, was what happened just three minutes before the 19-year-old’s debut Champions League goal. That was nothing else but a penalty miss by one of the world’s best strikers, Zlatan Ibrahimovic:
While that didn’t have any bearing on the game’s outcome, it’s certainly something that might be some food for thought for opposing goalkeepers who may find themselves on the receiving end of an Ibra spot-kick at some point in the near future.
