Champions League review: a fired up Vinícius Júnior and McKennie’s screamer

The knockout stages are here, and there were plenty of storylines to digest. We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of action. Feyenoord. Just two days after the dismissal of Brian Priske for “inconsistent results and a lack of chemistry”, and the installation of Pascal Bosschaart as caretaker manager, Feyenoord pulled off a handy first-leg victory over Milan. This season, the Dutch side’s home ground De Kuip has seen its best Champions League nights in decades and that trend continued as Milan, who included former Feyenoord hero Santiago Giménez in their lineup, were beaten 1-0. This was Feyenoord’s first knockout stage win at this level since defeating Coleraine in the 1974-75 European Cup. Igor Paixão’s early goal against Milan owed much to poor goalkeeping from Mike Maignan but the Brazilian was forever in the vanguard of his team’s attacks. Will Bosschaart be in charge for the second leg? Erik ten Hag has been linked with the vacancy.

Borussia Dortmund. Another club finding success under fresh management were Dortmund, though Niko Kovač, once of Bayern Munich, and recently sacked by Wolfsburg, has many miles on the clock. Sporting, themselves on a third manager of the season, were given a 3-0 home pounding by a team belying their Bundesliga form. Pascal Gross, beloved at Brighton, less productive in Westphalia, scored his first Dortmund goal on a night when Serhou Guirassy scored and supplied an assist, with Julian Brandt also setting up two goals. Gio Reyna had to sit out the night on the bench. As was the case last season, the Champions League continues to be BVB’s shelter from Bundesliga disappointments.

Club Brugge. If the competition’s expansion was supposed to allow more light on to the continent’s lesser leagues then the Belgian club have helped fulfill that promise. Atalanta were beaten 2-1 in Bruges, and if last season’s Europa League winners have every right to complain about the penalty for Brugge’s second goal, Nicky Hayen’s team had fought for every ball to get to that point. They can play, too. As the likes of Celtic, Aston Villa, Juventus and Manchester City found out in the group stage, Brugge are no pushovers. Brugge may, though, fear a second leg in Bergamo. Atalanta were enraged by that late penalty, awarded after Isak Hien barely grazed Gustaf Nilsson’s nose with his trailing arm.

Manchester City. So much is coming back to haunt City at the moment, not least Real Madrid, who were exultant 3-2 winners in Manchester on Tuesday night. Oh, for a recording of the conversations between Pep Guardiola and right-hand man Juanma Lillo as things fall apart. The song remains the same at City: Erling Haaland gave one of his best performances but still didn’t touch the ball enough as those around him continued to creak with age and overwork. Injury struck Jack Grealish and Manuel Akanji when both had been playing well. A recurrent theme of the season is talent City once shed coming good elsewhere and Brahim Díaz, never remotely a first-team prospect in Manchester, grabbed Real’s equaliser and performed that rather unnecessary non-celebration celebration. Panic and doom have set in at the Etihad: City spent $223m in January and yet Guardiola didn’t trust any new signing to start.

Considering the amount of business Milan did in January, it’s understandable that Sérgio Conceição’s team looked less than cohesive in Rotterdam. Kyle Walker, already sounding like a team leader, spoke afterwards: “If we don’t score goals it’s because we have to attack better as a team, we have to attack and defend all together.” A trio of Christian Pulisic, Rafael Leao and João Félix behind Giménez has potential to be thrilling but also infuriating. Pulisic lasted just 60 minutes, and Leao and Félix lived up their mercurial reputations. “Matches definitely become easier if you win duels,” said an unimpressed Conceição. Much better must come at San Siro.

The darlings of the group stage were granted the worst possible knockout draw in the form of Paris Saint-Germain, who were easy 3-0 winners at Brest. PSG’s domestic supremacy was transferred to the continental stage as two-goal Ousmane Dembélé took his scoring feats to 18 in his last 10 appearances. Brest’s Éric Roy, who has emerged as one of the coaches of the season, entered the world of Gallic existentialism when explaining his team’s defeat: “If I can’t fault my team much in terms of spirit and desire to do things, we lacked realism. From that point on, you can’t exist against a great team.” Too many risks were taken with an attacking style Roy all but admitted would not have been used in Ligue 1. “It seems like mission impossible,” he said of the second leg.

Weston McKennie (Juventus). As for goals of the week, look no further than McKennie’s thump from the edge of the penalty area that started the scoring for Juve in their 2-1 defeat of PSV. A new Juve are taking shape and McKennie was playing in a high-press behind Randal Kolo Muani, the PSG loanee. Meanwhile, Timothy Weah was at full-back opposite Englishman Lloyd Kelly. Thiago Motta took a while to warm to McKennie but he has become a first-choice pick. The American modestly described his goal as “lucky,” adding: “My role is not important, I work for the team.”.