Juventus wins opener
A smile, a wink and a thumbs-up: Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t seem too perturbed at not scoring on his Juventus debut.
The 33-year-old forward appeared relaxed after yesterday’s 3-2 victory at Chievo Verona in the clubs’ Serie A opener. And although Ronaldo did not stop to speak to reporters, he responded with those gestures when asked how he felt his debut had gone.
SOCCER
Ronaldo had scored in both preseason friendlies he played for Juventus since his surprise $131.5 million move from Real Madrid but could not find the back of the net on his competitive debut.
And it was up to Federico Bernardeschi to rescue Juventus, with a stoppage-time winner as the Bianconeri fought back from a goal down to beat Chievo and get their pursuit of an eighth straight league title off to a winning start.
Sami Khedira fired Juventus in front in the third minute. Mariusz Stepinski headed Chievo level shortly before halftime, and Emanuele Giaccherini converted a penalty after being brought down by Juventus debutant Joao Cancelo to give the hosts a surprise lead.
But Leonardo Bonucci marked his return to Juventus from rival AC Milan with a role in the equalizer, as his header off a corner went in off Chievo defender Mattia Bani.
Hot time in big city
In a thrilling London derby, host Chelsea scored twice in the opening 20 minutes, conceded twice before halftime and had a late winner through Marcos Alonso in a 3-2 victory over Arsenal — giving the Gunners back-to-back losses to start the Premier League season for the first time in club history.
Pedro Rodriguez and Alvaro Morata exploited Arsenal’s high line to put Chelsea up 2-0. Arsenal scored twice in a five-minute span through Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Iwobi
to erase the deficit, but Alonso swept in a cut-back from substitute Eden Hazard for the winner.
At Wembley Stadium, Harry Kane
finally scored a top-flight goal in August to seal Tottenham’s 3-1 win over Fulham. Winger Lucas Moura and Kieran Trippier had already scored for Spurs, with Aleksandar Mitrovic equalizing for Fulham just after halftime.
Barca off and running
Barcelona scored its 6,000th goal in the Spanish league after another ingenious strike by Lionel Messi got its title defense off to a winning start. Messi cleverly sent his free kick underneath Alaves’ wall to open the scoring in the 64th minute of Barcelona’s 3-0 win at Camp Nou Stadium. He also closed the scoring in injury time after substitute Philippe Coutinho had added to the lead in the 83rd.
Barcelona opened its league campaign with a win for the 10th straight season.
German upset averted
A fourth-tier team of amateurs held Bayern Munich scoreless for more than 80 minutes before Robert Lewandowski ended chances of an unlikely upset in the first round of the German Cup, beating SV Drochtersen/Assel, 1-0 with an 81st minute goal . . . .
World Cup star Kylian Mbappe came off the bench to score twice as Paris Saint-Germain beat Guingamp, 3-1, in the French league . . . .
In MLS action, Daniel Lovitz scored in the 90th minute to give the host Montreal Impact a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Fire, to pull four points ahead of the Revolution in the Eastern Conference.
The Philadelphia Union also pulled four points ahead of the Revs with a 2-0 win over New York City FC in Chester, Pa., on goals by Cory Burke and Ilson Pereira.
Daniel Royer scored his second goal of the game in the 90th minute to give the New York Red Bulls a 2-2 tie at the Vancouver Whitecaps, to move into a tie for the top spot in the Eastern Conference with Atlanta, which hosts Columbus today.
In Seattle, Harry Shipp had a goal and an assist and the Sounders rolled past the depleted Los Angeles Galaxy, 5-0, for their club-record sixth straight win. The Galaxy were without Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Giovani dos Santos, Jonathan dos Santos and Romain Alessandrini.