Misfiring Inter attack missing former star Romelu Lukaku

Inter Milan sorely missed Romelu Lukaku on Wednesday night. Inter's forwards were guilty of some wayward finishing as they failed to put away any of the team's 18 attempts in a 1-0 loss to Real Madrid in the Champions League.

Lukaku, meanwhile, has scored four goals in as many matches since moving from Inter to Chelsea for 115 million euros ($135 million in August), including the winner in a 1-0 victory over Zenit St. Petersburg on Tuesday.

Inter hadn't appeared to suffer too much in his absence, scoring nine goals in its three opening Serie A matches — the jointhighest in the league along with Roma and Lazio.

But those goals came against Genoa, Hellas Verona and Sampdoria, and the Nerazzurri attack struggled in its first real test on Wednesday.

Inter next faces Bologna on Saturday and its opponent has conceded just two goals, keeping two clean sheets in its past two matches.

Martínez formed a lethal partnership with Lukaku in their two years together at Inter, earning the nickname LuLa.

The Argentina forward has scored two goals in his past two league matches. New signings Edin Džeko and Joaquín Correa appear to be settling in well and both scored on their debuts, with the latter netting twice.

But the game against Real Madrid was Džeko's second full match in a matter of days, having also played the entire 90 minutes against Sampdoria on Sunday. And the 35-year-old showed clear signs of tiredness toward the end of the match.

"We deserved so much more. But if you don't score goals it's difficult to win," Džeko said.

Inter coach Simone Inzaghi is likely to hand Correa his first start against Bologna and will be looking for more precision in front of goal from the former Lazio player and the rest of the Nerazzurri attack.

It will be down to Correa, Džeko and Martínez to propel Inter forward in the defense of its Serie A crown and in the Champions League. And that will allow the Nerazzurri to put some distance between themselves and the shadow of Lukaku.

American coach Jesse Marsch endures tough start at Leipzig

Lots of drama, not many wins. That's the story so far under new

American coach Jesse Marsch at German soccer club Leipzig.

Leipzig played its part in one of the most entertaining Champions League games of the season so far when Christopher Nkunku scored a hat trick in a 6-3 loss at Manchester City on Wednesday.

Before that came a 4-1 loss to Bayern Munich, which had Marsch's Leipzig predecessor Julian Nagelsmann as coach and two ex-Leipzig players on the field. Marsch's six games so far have yielded two 4-0 wins and four battling but ultimately doomed defeats.

After the loss at City, Marsch listed flaws this season ranging from a lack of aggression in Manchester to "too little movement in possession" against Bundesliga opponent Mainz, to transitions that were too slow against Wolfsburg or simply "not good enough" versus Bayern.

The next test comes Saturday as Leipzig visits a Cologne team that has been hard to beat this season.

Marsch earned the Leipzig job after winning the Austrian title with sister club Salzburg, but he really made his name with a battling 4-3 loss at Liverpool in the Champions League. After that game, footage of his animated halftime speech in mixed German and English went viral.

At Salzburg, Marsch's team could be proud of a valiant, highscoring defeat to an English giant. It's hard to cast Leipzig in the same role of plucky underdog when many of the same players went to the Champions League semifinals under Nagelsmann 13 months ago.

Still, Marsch inherited a tricky job. Rebuilding the Leipzig defense takes time after Bayern bought standout center-back

Dayot Upamecano and Liverpool triggered a release clause for Ibrahima Konate. Without former captain Marcel Sabitzer, now a Bayern player too, the Leipzig midfield is less fluid in the transitions which are irking Marsch and opponents have more time to recover when they lose the ball.

After just four league games, it's already looking like a rebuild season for Leipzig. The gap to Bayern in second is seven points and there's little hope Bayern would drop any points at home to promoted Bochum on Saturday. Borussia Dortmund is forging ahead too, its attacking firepower making up for a calamitous defensive record rivaling the worst in the Bundesliga, and faces Union Berlin on Sunday.

Wolfsburg is the early leader with four wins from four and a near-bulletproof defense. Staying ahead of Bayern for now will likely require a win over an Eintracht Frankfurt team which hasn't won a league game since its standout strikers from last season left. Andre Silva joined Leipzig and Luka Jovic returned to Real Madrid after his loan ended.

Spanish clubs relieved to resume La Liga after CL turmoil

Antoine Griezmann jeered. Sergi Roberto booed. Sevilla thankful it drew with a team from Austria.

Spanish teams used to look forward to the end of summer and the return of the Champions League.

Not this time.

Of five Spanish teams, Real Madrid was the only one that could manage a win from the opening batch of games in Europe's elite competition.

And even Madrid will be relieved to get back to the Spanish league on Sunday when it visits Valencia with both tied on points atop the table with Atlético Madrid.

Valencia has exceeded expectations under new coach José Bordalás and a breakout season by Carlos Soler. The midfielder leads Valencia with three goals and has scored twice for Spain in World Cup qualification in recent weeks.

But Carlo Ancelotti will be expecting his Madrid to offer more in Mestalla Stadium than just another gritty defensive performance that kept it alive against Inter Milan before Rodrygo could snatch a 1-0 victory with an 89th-minute goal on Wednesday.

Rodrgyo's was only the second shot Madrid steered toward Inter's goal in the entire match. It took Dani Carvajal almost an hour to get its first strike on target.

Until then, Madrid was on pace to reproduce the embarrassment by Barcelona that was too much for some of its fans to bear.

Overwhelmed 3-0 by Bayern Munich, Barcelona was unable to muster a single shot on goal in the entire match on Tuesday.

The crowd, back at Camp Nou for its first European match since the start of the pandemic, took out its frustration on Roberto. The homegrown player who instantly became a hero for his last-gasp winner in Barcelona's memorable 6-1 rout of Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, was booed when he was substituted after being completely outplayed by Bayern's Alphonso Davies.

Coach Ronald Koeman and club president Joan Laporta have asked for their fans to be patient, but the pressure will be immense on the team to respond with a convincing victory when the winless Granada visits on Monday.

Atlético's talented attack was stymied by Porto in a scoreless stalemate on Wednesday, when Antoine Griezmann weathered an unpleasant welcome at Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.

The France forward was booed both before kickoff and when he came on as a second-half substitute. Many Atlético fans are still angry that he left the team for Barcelona two years ago, only to come back on loan at the end of this summer's transfer market when Barcelona needed to shed his wages.

But an attack that can also field Luis Suárez, João Félix, Ángel Correa and Yannick Carrasco could still not find a way to break down Porto, which was deprived of victory only by a video review that spotted a handball that annulled a late would-be goal.