It was supposed to be a walk in the park for Manchester City Tuesday night in their Champions League opener. The English club has been perfect in the young Premiership season while Juventus have still to win a game in Italy. Newly acquired Croatian striker Mario Mandžukić only has goose eggs to show for his efforts in Serie A.
So this was clearly going to be a win for City at the Etihad, right?
Wrong. Even after a Chiellini own goal in the 57th minute which would put City up, Juve would not give in as Mandza would equalize with a fantastic toe poke off a perfect Paul Pogba cross. Alvaro Morata would strike some the winner in the 81st minute and Juventus get a huge road win to open Champions League.
Who would have thought Mandžukić would score a Champions League before a Serie A goal?
In other Champions League news from Tuesday…
Luka Modrić, Mateo Kovačić and Real Madrid crushed Darijo Srna’s Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0. Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat trick by way of two penalties with Modrić playing the full 90 minutes. Kovačić came on early for Gareth Bale in the 31st minute while Srna picked up a yellow card in a 90 minute effort. PSG and Real Madrid are favorites to move on from this group.
theres more blacks and foreigners on the team than croatian,s how can they be zagreb anything?. explain.
Mandzukic didn’t score for Croatia when we needed him to score but he scores for Juventus. Darijo Deer.
I didn’t watch the game…but Real Madrid won 4-0. And Real Madrid were already up when the Srna incident occurred. Did it really swing momentum that much? Probably not.
Bebek is from Rijeka, which probably means he has some Serb blood in there somewhere.
Bebek usually fucks over Hajduk in the HNL……….and that continued by fucking over a former hajduk player in the Champions League. Srna’s reaction was great. He showed more in that reaction than he has for the repka.
U.S. Broadcast said he is Croatian and Wikipedia says the same and that he lives in Rijeka. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Bebek
@Brkic, The announcers said Bebek was Slovenian.
And in other news the “refugees” are now in Croatia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMPEVIHWRFM
There were actually 4 Croatians on the pitch for the Real Madrid vs Shakhtar Donetsk match. Modric and Kovacic for Real and Srna for Shakhtar, but the most influential was Ivan Bebek. Bebek was the match referee who pointed to the spot after Ronaldo’s shot struck Srna inside the box. Ronaldo quickly converted for Madrid’s second goal. Replays clearly showed that the ball hit Srna in the back and not his arm.
In fairness to Bebek, it looked as though he was not going to call the pen despite several Madrid players appealing for a hand ball. However, the assistant signaled to Bebek that it was indeed a handball and then he made the call.