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Berlin, Oct. 20 (BNA): Champions League runners-up Manchester City showed their quality on Tuesday as they put in a clinical performance to dismantle Club Brugge 5-1 in Belgium, but the Lionel Messi double kept Paris Saint-Germain at the top of Group A. .
There were also convincing victories for Real Madrid and Ajax while Liverpool won a thrilling five-goal away game against Atletico Madrid.
Left-back Joao Cancelo opened the scoring for City in half an hour and Riyad Mahrez doubled the score with a penalty kick, which he won himself before the end of the first half.
Then it was the turn of right-back Kyle Walker to score his first goal in the Champions League in 39 games in the 53rd minute, and in the middle of the second half, young Cole Palmer scored his first goal in the European elite competition, German news agency dpa reported.
Bruges have enjoyed an impressive season so far with a home draw with Paris Saint-Germain, an impressive win in Leipzig and a Hans Vanaken finish in gear.
But Mahrez’s second goal immediately extinguished any external hopes of returning to last season’s finalists
“One of the best performances we’ve had in Europe for sure,” said Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola. “I know how well they performed against PSG.
“We could have scored more goals; we had many chances. We are all happy with our performance.”
City are one point behind Paris Saint-Germain, who leads the group with seven points, after Messi scored a penalty kick in the 74th minute to defeat Leipzig goalless 3-2.
“RB Leipzig have a very good squad and they’ve been causing us problems all the time,” Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Julian Draxler told DAZN. “So we’re happy that we got three points today.”
Messi equalized shortly before after Andre Silva and Nordi Mukele canceled out the first goal from Kylian Mbappe, who was superb all-time but hit a stoppage-time penalty over the bar.
Leipzig coach Jesse Marsh said: “The match was in hand 2-1, it was not dangerous at the time. We have to take things step by step. We must not make mistakes in this competition if we want to survive.”
Liverpool also beat the 10-man Atletico 3-2 as Mohamed Salah opened the scoring and then maintained the Reds’ perfect record with a penalty kick. He is the first player from Liverpool to score in nine consecutive matches.
Naby Keita made it 2-0, but Antoine Griezmann’s double made up for just half the time as the French star spoiled the night by getting a straight red card with a high foot on Roberto Firmino ahead of the winner.
“We put in a surprisingly good performance at the start,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp told BT Sport of the start, which scored two goals in 13 minutes.
“We scored two great goals and played really good football, we played a strong second half in a tough and exciting match for both teams.”
Porto won 1-0 at home against Milan to join Atletico with four points, while the seven-times champions do not have zero.
Moldova Sherif lost for the first time, 3-1 to Inter Milan who are now third in Group D with four points. He joined Sherif in six goals from Real Madrid who qualified 5-0 over Shakhtar Donetsk, who are in last place with one score.
And in Group C, Ajax won the battle of the whole record-breaking teams by crushing the top German players Borussia Dortmund 4-0. Sporting Lisbon snatched its first points away from home 4-1 against Besiktas, who suffered three consecutive defeats.