{"id":19496,"date":"2025-09-18T09:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=19496"},"modified":"2025-09-18T09:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:04:07","slug":"van-dijk-grabs-liverpool-win-psg-start-champions-league-defence-in-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=19496","title":{"rendered":"Van Dijk grabs Liverpool win, PSG start Champions League defence in style"},"content":{"rendered":"
Virgil van Dijk scored a dramatic late winner to grab Liverpool a 3-2 Champions League victory over Atletico Madrid, while Paris Saint-Germain kicked off their title defence by thrashing Atalanta on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Harry Kane scored twice as Bayern Munich downed Club World Cup winners Chelsea 3-1 as Pafos and Bodo\/Glimt marked their Champions League debuts with hard-earned draws.<\/p>\n

Liverpool, with club-record signing Alexander Isak on debut, raced into a two-goal lead inside the first six minutes as Atletico struggled to get out of their own half on Merseyside.<\/p>\n

A Mohamed Salah free-kick flew in off Andy Robertson for a fortuitous fourth-minute opener, before the Egyptian forward collected Ryan Gravenberch’s pass and slotted into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n

But Atletico eased themselves into the game and halved the deficit in first-half injury time.<\/p>\n

Marcos Llorente, who scored twice in Atletico’s famous last-16 win at Anfield five years ago, stabbed the ball beyond a diving Alisson Becker from the edge of the box.<\/p>\n

Liverpool missed several chances to restore their advantage, including a glaring miss from Salah went he struck the post, and Llorente made them pay with a deflected late volley to draw Diego Simeone’s men level.<\/p>\n

But Arne Slot’s English champions have won all four of their opening Premier League games of the season with winners inside the last 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

This time it was skipper Van Dijk who produced the big moment with an excellent header from Dominik Szoboszlai’s corner in the 92nd minute.<\/p>\n

“We found a way again… Glad we got the win,” Van Dijk told TNT Sports. “Today I was the lucky one with the winner and we move on.”<\/p>\n

Atletico coach Simeone was shown a red card after a confrontation with Liverpool fans following Van Dijk’s goal.<\/p>\n

PSG cruise past Atalanta\u00a0<\/p>\n

PSG got their first Champions League campaign as reigning European champions off to a flying start with a 4-0 win over Atalanta in Paris.<\/p>\n

Captain Marquinhos tapped into an empty net in the third minute, before Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who was an injury doubt in the build-up, crashed home a fine second for Luis Enrique’s men six minutes before half-time.<\/p>\n

It could have been even better for the hosts at the Parc des Princes if not for Bradley Barcola’s tame 44th-minute penalty which was comfortably held by Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Carnesecchi.<\/p>\n

Atalanta never looked likely to stage a comeback, though, and Nuno Mendes added a third not long after the restart.<\/p>\n

Substitute Goncalo Ramos rounded off an excellent night for PSG with a dinked finish in stoppage time.<\/p>\n

– Kane downs Chelsea –<\/p>\n

Bayern gave themselves an early two-goal lead in a repeat of the 2012 Champions League final against Chelsea at the Allianz Arena.<\/p>\n

Trevoh Chalobah’s own goal and a Harry Kane spot-kick put the six-time champions in control, although Cole Palmer lashed a shot into the top corner to pull one back for Chelsea just before the half-hour mark.<\/p>\n

But Bayern ensured Chelsea’s first match in the competition since 2023 would end in defeat.<\/p>\n

Chelsea wing-back Malo Gusto inadvertently played the ball to Kane who gleefully accepted the gift with a cool finish to effectively kill off Chelsea in the 63rd minute.<\/p>\n

Inter Milan, who were humbled 5-0 in last season’s final by PSG, started their league-phase campaign with a 2-0 away win against Ajax.<\/p>\n

Marcus Thuram put the visitors ahead in Amsterdam by heading Hakan Calhanoglu’s corner past Vitezslav Jaros.<\/p>\n

The second goal was almost a carbon copy, Thuram meeting another Calhanoglu corner less than two minutes into the second half.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Bodo\/Glimt marked their debut in the Champions League proper by coming back from two goals down late on to draw 2-2 at Slavia Prague.<\/p>\n

Youssoupha Mbodji’s first goals for Slavia had the Czechs set for victory with less than 15 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

But Daniel Bassi got Norwegians Bodo\/Glimt back into the game before Sondre Brunstad Fet crashed in a magnificent 90th-minute volley.<\/p>\n

Cypriot club Pafos, playing in the tournament for the first time just 11 years since being founded, claimed a goalless draw at Olympiakos despite seeing wing-back Bruno sent off and veteran centre-half David Luiz hobble off injured in the first half.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgil van Dijk scored a dramatic late winner to grab Liverpool a 3-2 Champions League victory over Atletico Madrid, while Paris Saint-Germain kicked off their title defence by thrashing Atalanta on Wednesday. Elsewhere, Harry Kane scored twice as Bayern Munich downed Club World Cup winners Chelsea 3-1 as Pafos and Bodo\/Glimt marked their Champions League […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}