A surprising Premier League star received perfect marks alongside Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr in the Champions League team of the week.
Matchday 3 produced another run of dominant results for the English teams, as Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool and Aston Villa all recorded valuable wins in their bid to reach the knockout stages of the competition.
Elsewhere, Barcelona produced a five-star performance against Harry Kane and Bayern Munich, Celtic picked up a hugely surprising point against unbeaten Atalanta and Madrid came back to produce a magical second half against Borussia Dortmund.
The new Swiss model continues to divide opinion: the old group stage format is scrapped and the league stage format is already creating some memorable European moments.
Unai Emery’s huge Cup success continues to work wonders as Villa sit as surprise leaders at the top of the table with a maximum of nine points from three games and are yet to concede.
Two Manchester City players named in SofaScore Champions League Team of the Week
Aston Villa moved to the top of the Champions League standings after achieving a third consecutive victory
Vinicius Jr. produced a superstar performance as Real Madrid came from behind to beat Borussia Dortmund 5-2.
But, despite recording a convincing 2-0 away win against Bologna, there are no Villa players in SofaScore’s team of the week and only two Premier League players, both from the same team, made the cut. .
This week there were heroic and equally disastrous goalkeeping performances (just ask Manuel Neuer) and eight teams achieved goalless victories, but it is a goalkeeper who concedes a defeat that is collected in the goal.
Juventus goalkeeper Mattia Perin (9.4) was on the losing side in the 1-0 home defeat against Stuttgart, but things would have been much worse had he not made a series of brilliant saves when the visitors shot on goal 10 times.
Girona full-back Miguel Gutiérrez (8.7) flanks a backline that also includes Dinamo Zagreb’s Stefan Ristovski (8.3), Stuttgart defender Jeff Chabot (8.1) and Monaco centre-back Wilfried Singo ( 8.6), who scored an absolute goal in the 5-1 victory over Red Star.
Former Liverpool midfielder Takumi Minamino (8.9) was the star of the show in the Monaco fixture and features in a three-man Team of the Week midfield that also features a Manchester City star.
Minamino was the top scorer in Monaco’s victory when he opened the scoring in the 20th minute before scoring again later in the match as the club secured a valuable home win and received a rating of 8.9.
Raphinha (9.2) puts him next to him and may be a little miffed that he didn’t score a perfect 10 after enjoying his best night in a Barcelona shirt by scoring a beautiful hattrick in the club’s victory. Catalan 4-1 over Bayern.
But City’s Portuguese midfielder Matheus Nunes (10) is the top scorer after scoring a goal from the penalty spot and assisting two other goals as Pep Guardiola’s superstar team beat Sparta Prague 5-0 .
Raphinha (left) scored a hat-trick in Barcelona’s dominant victory over Bayern Munich, while Erling Haaland (right) scored twice for Man City.
In Haaland’s first goal, the Norwegian striker produced a brilliant kung-fu style finish.
Vinicius Jr showed why he is a favorite for the Ballon d’Or after scoring an incredible goal after covering the entire field
The former Wolves creator provided a pinpoint cross for John Stones to give City a three-goal lead and followed up moments later by setting up Erling Haaland for his second. Nunes then sent the goalkeeper the wrong way from the penalty spot to score his first Champions League goal.
Meanwhile, there were many teams competing to lead the team of the week attack after a combined total of 51 goals were scored in the third round of matches.
Breel Embolo (8.5) gets the nod on the right wing for the dream team after scoring in stoppage time at the end of the first half to give Monaco comfortable control in their Champions League clash.
The 27-year-old also provided the assist for Minamino’s second to complete a brilliant night in attack where his pace and guile wreaked havoc.
City striker Haaland (8.5) is named center forward and the Norwegian scored two brilliant goals in what is now a regular return in clashes against European minnows like Sparta.
Their first goal was the best of the group, and possibly the tournament so far, when Haaland acrobatically jumped into the air and, kung-fu style, back-heeled the ball to a helpless, struggling goalkeeper.
City’s Portuguese midfielder Matheus Nunes is the team’s top scorer of the week with a perfect 10
Former Liverpool striker Takumi Minamino was named man of the match in Monaco’s victory over Red Star
The 24-year-old needed to score both goals to stay in the race for the Champions League golden boot and Wednesday’s victory took him to three goals, just two behind Kane.
Vinicius Jr (10) completes the team of the week after proving he is still the standout star in Madrid, not Kylian Mbappé, scoring an incredible hat-trick in the second half as the Spanish giants came back from two goals down to beat Dortmund 5 -2.
A plethora of brilliant finishes was capped by the Brazilian’s marauding run which saw him burst down the wing before cutting in and finishing with a curling effort from outside the area to stun Dortmund and send the Santiago Bernabeu into ecstasy.
It’s performances like that that make Vinicius Jr. the favorite to be crowned Ballon d’Or winner in Paris next week as Madrid continues its bid to retain the Champions League.
