The beginning of Leicester City’s title defence has been less than impressive but last night, the Foxes embarked on their maiden Champions League voyage with a comprehensive 3-0 win over an abject Club Brugge outfit.
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Favourites for relegation from the Premier League last season, English champions Leicester make their Champions League debut at Club Brugge today.
Marc Albrighton opened the scoring with Leicester’s first shot on goal and Riyad Mahrez hit a brace as the Foxes opened up their Champions League account with a victory. “I said we can not think about the Champions League, it’s an experience for us and we hope to go through the group and play again”.
Leicester themselves haven’t started the season very successfully, winning four points in as many matches and suffering two defeats in progress.
His team may have fulfilled all the stereotypical requirements of a surprise victor defending a title during the open blows of the new Premier League season but they have the Champions League cracked and can already think about the knockout phase.
Mahrez was back to his best, whipping an unstoppable free-kick in from 20 yards then adding another from the penalty spot when Jamie Vardy was fouled by Bruges goalkeeper Ludovic Butelle. Maybe he is very exhausted of dilly-ding dilly-dong and prefers the Champions League music.
Both Madrid’s goals came in the final two minutes after Bruno Cesar had given the visitors the lead.
Tottenham’s Champions League campaign began disappointingly as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat against AS Monaco before an English record for a home crowd of 85,011 at Wembley.
“There are another five, so stay calm, humble”, added Ranieri, whose team are already in control of Group G after rivals Porto and FC Copenhagen drew 1-1 in Portugal.
If he had missed, Ranieri joked, “I take the neck and crush the neck!”
“We wrote a fantastic fairytale last season, nobody was waiting for us [to win the league] and, also, we didn’t believe it could be possible at the start”, he said.
“We know where we want to go, and maybe – maybe I say – people do not expect much from us, as in theory Leicester are stronger than us”. But, having committed himself to the Foxes with a new contract in a bid to prove himself in European football before making the next step in his career, the winger looked back to his old self. In 2012 Belarus side BATE Borisov beat French champions Lille in their first match but neither went through.
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Admittedly, Club Brugge, who Manchester United easily dispatched of in the Champions League qualifying rounds last term, are not exactly elite competition, but Leicester performed admirably on what was another venture into unchartered territory for the club. It’s vital they start as they mean to go on and get something positive out of the game.
