UEFA Champions League Stats Recap: Matchday 1 | The Analyst
We look back at the key UEFA Champions League stats stories and moments that matter from Matchday 1 of the 2023-24 competition.
Deep into injury time, with Lazio trailing Atlético Madrid 1-0, Lazio needed a miracle to rescue a point in their opening game of the UEFA Champions League season. Their goalkeeper Ivan Provedel provided just that, with a bullet header from Luis Alberto’s teasing cross in the fifth minute of added time.
It’s not Provedel’s first professional goal, either. He also scored a 95th-minute header to rescue a draw in a Serie B game back in February 2020. Away at Ascoli and losing 2-1, he scored Juve Stabia’s second goal to win them a point with a 2-2 draw.
The Italian is the fourth goalkeeper to score in the UEFA Champions League, and just the second to do so excluding penalties.
Hans-Jörg Butt is still the goalkeeper with the most UCL goals, netting three penalties, all for different teams (Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Hamburg), all in different matches, but all against the same opponent – Juventus. You won’t find many quirkier Champions League stats than that.
Provedel was the first goalkeeper to score in the competition since Vincent Enyeama’s penalty for Hapoel Tel Aviv versus Lyon in September 2010, while the only other goalkeeper to score from open play in the competition was Sinan Bolat for Standard Liège against AZ Alkmaar in December 2009.
Jörg Butt – Hamburg vs. Juventus: 13 September 2000 (penalty)Jörg Butt – Bayer Leverkusen vs. Juventus: 12 March 2002 (penalty)Jörg Butt – Bayern Munich vs. Juventus: 8 December 2009 (penalty)Sinan Bolat – Standard Liège vs. AZ: 9 December 2009Vincent Enyeama – Hapoel Tel Aviv vs. Lyon: 29 September 2010 (penalty)Ivan Provedel – Lazio vs. Atlético Madrid: 19 September 2023
Whether it was a penalty for you or not, Kylian Mbappé converted it. Following a Borussia Dortmund handball in the penalty area, Mbappé stepped to the spot in the 49th minute and scored his 41st Champions League goal as Paris Saint-Germain got out in front of the group of death with a 2-0 win following the Milan-Newcastle draw. He settled for the one goal after stringing together three straight matches with two goals in Ligue 1, but it gets him within 10 goals of Lionel Messi’s record of 51 Champions League goals before the age of 25.
Now, to match or surpass that mark, Mbappé has some serious work to do, and he could have made it somewhat easier had he converted one or two of his late chances Tuesday. He turns 25 on 20 December, meaning he’s only got the five remaining group-stage matches this season to get there. He got the first 41 in 62 matches with PSG and Monaco, but as we said above, he’s been dealing in braces lately. Can he get the next 10 or 11 in five? That may be particularly difficult with the level of competition PSG face in Group F with Dortmund, Milan and Newcastle United, all of which rank within the top 17 of the Opta Power Rankings.
Even if he were to pull off that ridiculous pace, Erling Haaland may have something to say about it. The Manchester City striker is six goals behind Mbappé and won’t turn 25 until 21 July 2025, meaning Haaland has all of this season and next season to track down Messi.
Of the 41 UCL goals Mbappé has scored, 35 have been for PSG. Among Frenchmen to score for one specific side in the competition, that draws him level with Thierry Henry at Arsenal, while only Karim Benzema for Real Madrid (78) more.
Even Robert Lewandowski will tell you that there is zero chance of him catching Cristiano Ronaldo’s 140-goal record UEFA Champions League goal tally, or even the 129 scored by Lionel Messi in second. However, both of those are gone from Europe now, with fourth-ranked Karim Benzema joining Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia. This leaves Lewandowski out on his own among the top scoring UCL players of all-time to still be playing in the competition.
His target will undoubtedly be to become just the third player to reach 100 goals in the competition (excluding qualifiers), and he edged closer with a goal versus Royal Antwerp tonight. Now on 92 goals, he’s just eight away from the century.
Antwerp were the 33rd team to concede a goal to the Polish striker in the Champions League, with Lewandowski’s spread lower than only Messi (40), Ronaldo (38) and Benzema (34) in the competition.
At 35 years and 29 days old, Lewandowski also became Barcelona’s all-time oldest goalscorer in the Champions League, overtaking Gerard Piqué (34y 260d). With age no longer on his side, he’ll be hoping that Barcelona can get past the group stage to help him on his personal goal quest. Despite five goals in five UCL games last season, they exited before the knockout stages and dropped into the Europa League, but with arguably the easiest group this time around, it’s unlikely to happen again.
In the end, Manchester City eased to a win over Crvena Zvezda, as expected. But at half-time, with Pep Guardiola’s side wasteful in front of goal – failing to score with 22 shots worth 2.32 xG – the Serbian side took advantage, with Osman Bukari scoring with their only first-half shot on the counter attack.
It took just 72 seconds and one shot into the second half for City to do what they failed to do before the break, with Julián Álvarez netting his first of two goals in this win. Overall, Álvarez was in electric form, having direct involvement in 15 of their shots on the night (eight shots, seven chances created). Only four players have been involved in more within a single UCL match since 2003-04 – two of those were Cristiano Ronaldo (the others were Arjen Robben and Kaká, if you’re asking).
Only once in the previous 28 seasons have the competition holders lost their opening group-stage match, with Liverpool going down 2-0 at Napoli in 2019-20. City didn’t make the same mistake as their Premier League rivals, to back up the Opta supercomputer’s prediction of making them heavy favourites to be just the second side to retain the UEFA Champions League title after Real Madrid in three years between 2016 and 2018.
Erling Haaland – last season’s top scorer in the Champions League with 12 goals – failed to score for a fourth consecutive appearance in the competition, extending his personal record drought in the UCL. He could afford to have an off night in front of goal, with Álvarez in such exciting form.
Overall, Man City had 37 shots in this win – only three teams on record (since 2003-04) have had more inside 90 minutes of a UCL match, while only four teams have attempted more than their 16 shots on target tonight. It may have only ended 3-1, but it was an utterly dominant performance from Pep Guardiola’s side.
If you watched Barcelona’s 5-0 win over Antwerp, you witnessed a quarter of João Felix’s career Champions League goal involvements. It was his Barcelona debut in the competition, and the Portugal international got the scoring started in the 11th minute, assisted Robert Lewandowski eight minutes later, then scored his second in the 66th. It’s the first time he’s had three goal involvements in a UCL match and fourth time he’s had at least three in his club career dating back to his time with Benfica.
Felix hasn’t traditionally thrived in the Champions League – at least from a goals and assists perspective – having scored seven goals with two assists in his previous 32 matches with Benfica, Atlético Madrid and Chelsea. Two of those goals came from the penalty spot.
This time last year, Felix was still with Atlético for six group stage matches before his winter move in time for four UCL matches for Chelsea. He didn’t score or assist across 463 minutes with both clubs to extend a streak of matches in the competition without a goal or assist to 13.
That’s over, and the 23-year-old now has three goals and an assist in 142 minutes across three matches for his new club.
Milan 0-0 NewcastleAC Milan were drawn into the Champions League group of death a season after reaching the semi-finals, and they reached that elite European stage with what at times was a rather conservative style. They didn’t allow a goal in their final two group-stage matches through their first quarter-final match against Napoli, and on that five-game run Milan never had an advantage in possession. After the group stage, they never managed more than four shots on target in a match.
Things started faster Tuesday at the San Siro against Group F opponents Newcastle with Rafael Leão dancing the ball through penalty area and Rade Krunić creating three chances in the first 19 minutes, but being on the front foot didn’t translate to three points – or even a goal.
Stefano Pioli’s side were consistently more aggressive out of the gate with six shots on target in the first 20 minutes, and they ended the first half with seven for the most they’ve managed in the first half of a Champions League match dating to 2003-04. Their 15 shots in the half were the most they’ve had since their 17 against BATE in 2011-12, while it took Newcastle 41 minutes to produce their first shot after a two-decade absence from the competition.
Milan quieted some in the second half but were still the more threatening side, finishing with 25 shots on nine on target. The data says it should have amounted in two goals with a 2.08-0.19 expected goals advantage, and the history books confirm there have only been four occasions since 2003-04 of a team having more shots on target in a UCL game without scoring than Milan had tonight. Milan themselves were held goalless in 2005 with 13 shots on target against PSV, while Braga and Atlético Madrid (twice) have reached 10 shots on target without scoring.
On an individual level, Krunić finished the match with seven chances created (four from corners) to match Sandro Tonali’s effort from a group-stage match last season against Dinamo Zagreb for the most by a Milan player since 2012-13.
Eddie Howe’s side didn’t have a shot on target until second-half stoppage time and were out-touched in the opposition penalty area 33-10, but an away point against one of last season’s semi-finalists is something for Newcastle to work with to start the competition after a generation away from it.
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