Sport / Football

Como humiliate Manchester United as five teams stay perfect in Europe

Matchday 3 delivered 34 goals in nine games: Como beat Manchester United 4-1 behind two goals from Nico Paz, Arsenal drew 2-2 at Bayern Munich, and Real Madrid, Aston Villa and Real Betis joined Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool on nine points.

Como, Italy · October 21, 2026

The most startling result of this Champions League season so far did not come from one of its grand stadiums. It came from a small ground on the edge of Lake Como, where Como, playing in the competition for the first time, beat Manchester United 4-1 on Wednesday night and left a three time European champion apologising to its own travelling fans. Nico Paz curled Como in front inside two minutes, set up the second and scored the third himself, and by the time Jacobo Ramon headed in the fourth, United were not chasing a game. They were enduring one.

Paz was the player United never got near. The 22 year old Argentine opened his body and bent the first goal into the corner from the edge of the area, then four minutes after half time slipped a pass through for Anastasios Douvikas to make it 2-0. On 57 minutes Paz robbed Carlos Baleba, drove more than 30 metres and finished inside the far post for his second. Ramon headed in a cross from substitute Kaiki Bruno on 76 minutes, and only Joshua Zirkzee, hooking in an Amad Diallo cross in stoppage time, kept the scoreline short of United's heaviest defeat in the competition. The context makes it harder, not easier, for United. They arrived missing nine players, but Como had injuries of their own, and United have now gone seven games without a win in all competitions, in their worst start to a season in 40 years. Manager Michael Carrick called the performance unacceptable and took responsibility for it. Captain Bruno Fernandes, speaking to TNT Sports, questioned the choice not to press Como man to man and said conceding early put the team into what he called a mood of defeat. When a captain starts explaining the tactics in public, the problem has moved beyond one bad night.

The heavyweight game of the night, in Munich, finished level and probably should have. Arsenal lost Bukayo Saka to a thigh injury inside the opening ten minutes at Bayern Munich, then took the lead through the man who replaced him, Eberechi Eze stroking in a Martin Odegaard pass on 25 minutes after a video review overturned an offside call. Harry Kane levelled the match with his feet rather than his head, playing a pass from halfway that Alphonso Davies ran onto and finished on 35 minutes, and Kane put Bayern in front from the penalty spot on 61 minutes after his shot struck Jurrien Timber on the arm. That penalty was Kane's tenth straight Champions League game with a goal, one short of the record Cristiano Ronaldo set for Real Madrid, and his 16th goal against Arsenal. Declan Rice still had the last word, racing into the box to finish a move built by substitutes Noni Madueke and Viktor Gyokeres on 82 minutes. Arsenal stay unbeaten on seven points. Bayern, missing Michael Olise, Joshua Kimmich and Jamal Musiala, have five, and both sides looked like what they are, contenders who can hurt each other and survive it.

Real Madrid made their perfect start look routine, which is its own kind of warning. Leipzig matched them for most of the first half at the Santiago Bernabeu and Thibaut Courtois had to save well from Romulo, but Bernardo Silva forced in the opener just before half time for his first Madrid goal, Arda Guler tapped in a Kylian Mbappe header across goal on 52 minutes, and the last ten minutes became a show. Mbappe curled in the third on 83 minutes, Tidiam Gomis pulled one back for Leipzig on 85, and Yan Diomande, on as a substitute against the club he left last summer, volleyed in the fourth on 87 to complete a cameo that also included the assist for Mbappe. Madrid have nine points from three games and go to Barcelona in the Clasico on Sunday with their European work in perfect order and their former Leipzig winger suddenly impossible to leave out.

Aston Villa and Real Betis completed the set of perfect starts, in very different styles. Villa beat Viking 3-1 at Villa Park, Ross Barkley heading in an Ibrahim Mbaye corner on 23 minutes and Emiliano Buendia scoring a penalty on 37 after a video review ruled that Alysson had been clipped in the box. Alysson, the best player on the pitch, raced through to cross for the third, which Henrik Heggheim could only turn past his own goalkeeper on 62 minutes, and Peter Christiansen's late volley for Viking was the only blemish on a third straight Villa win. Betis needed one moment in Seville, Isco converting a penalty on 59 minutes to beat Feyenoord 1-0, and then defended their lead through a nervous finish. Five teams now sit on nine points: Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Real Madrid and Real Betis. Only one of them, Madrid, was on most lists of favourites when the league phase began.

The early kickoff in France supplied the night's other six goal game. Galatasaray won 4-2 at Lille, a match they led, lost control of and then took back. Yunus Akgun put the visitors ahead early, Soriba Diaoune equalised and then scored again on 39 minutes to put Lille in front, and Aleksey Batrakov headed Galatasaray level just before half time. A Nabil Bentaleb own goal from a Galatasaray corner put the Turkish side back in front on 52 minutes, and Victor Osimhen finished the scoring on 61, a goal with an extra edge because it came against his former club. Galatasaray have their first win and three points. Lille, beaten for the third time in three games, have none and sit near the foot of the table with the hardest part of their schedule still to reason with.

Lisbon produced the shock that the scoreline in Como overshadowed. Sporting CP, who had won their first two games, led LASK through a Luis Suarez penalty on five minutes, lost that lead to Christoph Lang on 15, and then lost the game in five second half minutes, Sasa Kalajdzic putting LASK in front on 63 and Krystof Danek adding a third on 68. Suarez scored his second on 89 minutes, too late to change anything but the margin. LASK, pointless before Wednesday, left with a 3-2 win. In Milan, Inter finally got off the mark in spite of themselves: Alessandro Bastoni was sent off for a second yellow card on 68 minutes with the game goalless, and nine minutes later Carlos Augusto ran onto a Henrikh Mkhitaryan pass and scored the only goal against Shakhtar Donetsk, giving Inter their first points after two defeats. Club Brugge were the night's quiet professionals, beating Lens 3-0 through Hans Vanaken in first half stoppage time, Joaquin Seys five minutes after the restart and Carlos Forbs on 72 minutes, a second straight win in the competition and a sixth straight win in all competitions.

Wednesday's results in full: Como 4-1 Manchester United, Lille 2-4 Galatasaray, Aston Villa 3-1 Viking, Bayern Munich 2-2 Arsenal, Club Brugge 3-0 Lens, Inter 1-0 Shakhtar Donetsk, Real Betis 1-0 Feyenoord, Real Madrid 4-1 Leipzig, Sporting CP 2-3 LASK.

Our call is that Wednesday quietly redrew who the top eight will have to beat. The perfect five are not five versions of the same team. Madrid won with a substitute changing the game, Arsenal took a point in Munich after losing their best winger in ten minutes, and Villa and Betis won games they controlled in completely different ways, one by attacking a weaker opponent and one by surviving a stronger finish than their own. Depth, not star power, was the thread through every one of those results, and depth is exactly what failed United in Como, where a long injury list became an excuse a well coached first time entrant refused to accept for themselves. If that pattern holds, the league phase will not be decided by which squad has the biggest name in January. It will be decided by which favourite can lose a starter on a Wednesday night in October and still play the same way, and on the evidence of this round, there are fewer of those teams than the table suggests.