Champions League Team of the Week, Matchday One: Messi

10:55am on Thursday 22nd October 2020
By Martin Macdonald

Bayern and Barcelona both started their Champions League group stage campaigns in emphatic fashion, defeating Atletico Madrid and Ferencvaros 4-0 and 5-1 respectively.

For Bayern the key man in the victory was Kingsley Coman (9.7), who scored two and assisted another as Diego Simeone's outfit were comfortably swept aside by the reigning champions.

Lionel Messi (9.7) was the orchestrator for the Blaugrana as he scored a penalty and assisted a goal for Ousmane Dembele.

Read their full performance analysis:

Kingsley Coman: Player Rating and Performance v Atletico

Lionel Messi: Player Rating and Performance v Ferencvaros

2020/21 Champions League: Groups, Matches, Team Stats, Player Stats

In our Team of the Week, Alvaro Morata (8.6) joins those two in attack after his two goals for Juve against Dynamo Kyiv.

The most surprising result of the round came in Madrid as Zinedine Zidane's side were defeated 3-2 by Shakhtar, who actually led 3-0 at half-time in that game. Tete (8.4) was superb for the Ukrainians, scoring one and assisting another, although he should have added to his tally at least one more time.

Also in midfield is Bayern pair Leon Goretka (8.4) and Joshua Kimmich (8.4). As well as bossing the game in central areas, the contributed to the goals, too. Goretzka scored the second with a cracking strike into the corner, while Kimmich assisted the opener for one of the passes of the week for Coman.

Following Juve's clean sheet away at Dynamo Kyiv, Leonardo Bonucci (7.7) and Danilo (7.8) are featured in defence.

RB Leipzig had a surprising match winner in the form of Angelino (8.7), who scored both goals in the 2-0 win over Basaksehir.

Christian Romero (8.3) was solid for Atalanta in the win against Midtjylland, and recorded an assist for Duvan Zapata too.

Liverpool rode their luck at times against Ajax, and had to rely on Adrian (7.9) in goal to bail them out more than once.

Champions League Team of the Week

Matchday 1