Man U hammers Leipzig; Barcelona beats J
LONDON: Manchester United scored a resounding 50 win over RB Leipzig, while Barcelona beat old rival Juventus 20 in yesterday’s Champions League action.
Juve, without Cristiano Ronaldo who is still positive for Covid19, went behind through Ousmane Dembele’s deflected shot, and had Merih Demiral sent off before Lionel Messi’s penalty made it 20.
United put its German opponents to the sword in group H as Mason Greenwood and Anthony Martial both scored and Marcus Rashford grabbed a hattrick from the bench at Old Trafford.
Paris SaintGermain won 20 at Istanbul Basaksehir despite losing Neymar to injury, while Chelsea defeated Krasnodar 40 in Russia.
Barcelona started the better in Turin and needed only 14 minutes to open the scoring. Dembele let fly from outside the area, and his shot looped over Wojciech Szczesny after hitting Federico Chiesa.
Spain international Morata then had the ball in the back of the net three times, twice in the first half and once after the break, but he was in an offside position on each occasion.
‘‘We knew it would have been a difficult game against a team who can play football and are further than us in their own path,’’ Juventus coach Andrea Pirlo said.
‘‘They have players who are used to playing this kind of game, while we had many in their second Champions League appearance only.’’
Ronald Koeman’s side was in the ascendancy but did not double its lead till injury time. Messi netted from the spot just six minutes after Demiral received a second yellow card for a late foul on Miralem Pjanic.
‘‘The best response we could give to the turmoil at the club is a display like this. Everybody has been talking a lot but the team simply want to win games,’’ Barcelona midfielder Sergio Roberto said, a day after president Josep Bartomeu resigned.
Manchester United was far too good for last season’s semifinalists Leipzig, which failed to secure a first German win at Old Trafford since Bayern Munich in 2001.
Paul Pogba’s pass was superbly finished by Greenwood midway through the first half and keeper David de Gea preserved the lead into the final halfhour.
Rashford’s introduction resulted in the game bursting into life.
He raced on to Bruno Fernandes’ pass to bag his first before drilling his second past Peter Gulacsi.
He then hammered in from inside the penalty area for the first senior hattrick of his career after Martial’s penalty had made it 40.
‘‘Marcus was fantastic,’’ United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said.
‘‘You hope you can make an impact off the bench, and when you’ve got players like that in reserve it’s great for us.’’
Paris SaintGermain picked up all three points at Basaksehir to move level with Leipzig in the group. Neymar was forced off just 26 minutes into the game with a hamstring issue, having attempted to carry on with heavy