Champions League players to watch: Man United’s Marcus Rashford, Inter’s Lautaro Martinez, PSG teenager, more
Rashford #Rashford
Week two of the Champions League is upon us (catch all the action across Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network, and CBS Sports Network), bringing with it an intriguing slate of fixtures including Paris Saint-Germain’s trip to Newcastle and a battle between Inter and Benfica. Here are five players I’ll be keeping an eye on:
1. Lautaro Martinez, Inter
Fresh from making history as the first substitute to score four goals in a Serie A match, Lautaro Martinez carries Inter into what may prove to be a pivotal second group stage game against Benfica. The stakes are altogether greater for the visitors to the San Siro given their loss to Red Bull Salzburg in the opening round of fixtures, but if Inter are to get close to replicating last year’s run to the final they are going to need to perform better than they did against Real Sociedad last time out.
That was a game that might have been so much worse if it was not for Martinez. Then again that is far from the first time one could have said that about the 26 year old in recent years, a man described by Simone Inzaghi rather prosaically as Inter’s “leader, the captain,” after he turned the tide against Salernitana at the weekend. With nine goals in Serie A this season, Martinez already has a huge lead in the race to be named Capocannoniere. More than that, early though we may be in the 2023-24 campaign, you get the sense this could be a year like Gonzalo Higuain had in 2015-16 or Ciro Immobile in 2019-20, one where an elite forward finds himself on a burner and doesn’t cool down.
Lautaro Martinez’s production so far in league play this season TruMedia
In terms of shots, what Martinez is delivering this season is not all that out of what he has established as ordinary (and for many others would be extraordinary). Indeed scrub penalties out of the equation and the Argentine is averaging slightly fewer shots than last season whilst his xG and xG per shot are on a par with his excellent performances in the 2021-22 Scudetto-winning campaign. Then he was averaging a goal every 128 minutes. Now it is one every 68. Scoring four in just over 35 minutes will boost anyone’s numbers, but even before this weekend there were signs that Martinez was on a real heater.
His 3.82 non-penalty xG had resulted in eight goals, those numbers are surely going to regress to the mean at some point. For now at least, though, Martinez is excelling because he is converting almost every good chance that comes his way. He has taken seven shots worth more than 0.15 xG this season. Six of them have resulted in goals, at the moment he seems to be reaching every cutback and cross in stride, every shot coming off the sweet spot, a forward in the prime of his career seeing the ball at twice its size. He might only need one shot to beat Benfica.
How to watch Inter vs. Benfica
Please check the opt-in box to acknowledge that you would like to subscribe.
Thanks for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox.
Sorry! There was an error processing your subscription.
2. Marcus Rashford, Manchester United
There is familiar trouble brewing at Old Trafford. It is not just that Erik ten Hag’s side have lost four of seven Premier League games and their opening Champions League match against Bayern Munich. The more profound issue is that even when Manchester United win games it tends not to be due to the qualities of their system but their personnel, as aptly summarised by former England international Paul Merson. “You just don’t see the pattern of play. If it comes off, it comes off,” he said on Monday morning. “At Man United, it’s just get the ball out wide and hope [Marcus] Rashford does something and if he does something we might score a goal.”
If you were to argue against Merson’s point, the most convincing case you would make might not be that United are entirely reliant on Rashford, who has come back to earth in the early weeks of this season after soaring so high last. They are entirely reliant on him, Bruno Fernandes and perhaps Casemiro. Between them those three have scored six of their top goals in the Premier League and Europe this season and it seems sub-optimal when your highest scorer through eight matches is defensive midfielder Casemiro. That triumvirate also account for 67 of 118 shots, 41 of 100 chances created and 7.8 of their 13 xG, a remarkable 60 percent of United’s goal threat.
That isn’t the sum of the problem. Fourth on United’s xG list? Center back Raphael Varane. Victor Lindelof has created as many chances as the combined output of Mason Mount, Rasmus Hojlund and Alejandro Garnacho. A significant part of this warping towards Casemiro, Fernandes and Rashford is of course that they are available. For various reasons sporting and otherwise, Ten Hag has got limited minutes out of the likes of Mount, Antony, Jadon Sancho and Hojlund, the latter clearly a dangerous prospect but a project player at a club trapped in a day-to-day cycle. The ever-changing supporting cast will naturally force a greater reliance on the superstars but defeat to Crystal Palace showed precious little evidence of a team that had some collective sense of how to get to goal.
And so in a match against Galatasaray where defeat would leave United teetering awkwardly over the European trap door, it will surely fall to one of the superstars to get them back on the right track. If they deliver, perhaps this vehicle will keep trundling along. Ultimately, however, something profound needs to change.
How to watch Manchester United vs. Galatasaray
Don’t miss CBS Sports Golazo Network’s Morning Footy, now in podcast form! Our crew brings you all the news, views, highlights and laughs you need to follow the Beautiful Game in every corner of the globe, every Monday-Friday all year long
3. Johan Bakayoko, PSV Eindhoven
Find yourself in front of a PSV match this season and you will do well to take your eyes off the 20 year old Belgian winger flying across the right flank. Indeed, on the night that Arsenal marked their big return to Europe’s top table as much of the talk among the British press pack was about Bakayoko as it was about Gabriel Jesus or Bukayo Saka.
This should not be entirely read as a ringing endorsement of the youngster, who has turned 40 shots so far this season into zero goals. That is perhaps no wonder when Bakayoko is averaging 0.05 xG per shot, taking more efforts from this sort of position than he is in the six yard box.
Bakayoko shoots into a crowd of bodies from deep range. Utrecht goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas does not have to make a sae Wyscout/Eredivisie
Were I Peter Bosz I might gently suggest that punting the ball at four opponents is a suboptimal route to goal. Crucially, however, I can confirm that I am not in fact a 59 year old man from Appeldoorn. Indeed, I’ve never so much as stepped foot in the city that is one of the few in the Netherlands to sit above sea level. As such, I feel empowered to say to you, Johan Bakayoko, that you should continue to do you, all full pelt, shoot from anywhere that you are. After all, what lottery do you win without buying a ticket?
How to watch PSV vs. Sevilla4. Warren Zaire-Emery, Paris Saint-Germain
In recent years the temptation to simply zone out from PSG matches until the spring has been hard to resist. There were more than enough players in the squad who seemed to be doing exactly the same. That might have changed this season. Partly, that is a function of a draw that delivered some early sense of jeopardy for the French champions. but equally under Luis Enrique’s tenure this has the look of a real team rather than superstars backed by a peripheral supporting cast.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the midfield, which actually exists as more than just a tributary to Neymar and Lionel Messi this season. There are intriguing tactical wrinkles to this team, none more so than those brought by 17-year-old Zaire-Emery, who has established himself as a cornerstone of Enrique’s plans. So far this season PSG have been marginally tilted to the right, the better to exploit Achraf Hakimi and Ousmane Dembele’s ball progression before sweeping the ball across the field for Kylian Mbappe to do his thing.
Facilitating all that is Zaire-Emery, always free for a pass, never afraid to carry the ball forward and draw a man. For such a young player he radiates composure and authority, such that Thierry Henry concluded he was an obvious choice to skipper the France Under-21 side. He has a fine trade in spreading the play from one flank to another and although he is not yet taking on the mantle of creator in chief (no wonder given the talent Enrique has across the team) he seems to have the eye for a decisive pass such as this one below, where he shapes to slip a ball through the center backs to Marco Asensio only to fire it into the space being attacked by Ousmane Dembele.
Zaire-Emery slips in Dembele Wyscout/Ligue 1
For too long PSG midfielders have been bystanders at best, players of real flair and vision atrophying in systems that ask nothing of them beyond giving the ball to a superstar forward and watching on. Now a prodigious talent, a homegrown one at that, is flexing his muscles. It makes for an altogether more exhilarating watch in the French capital.
How to watch Newcastle vs. PSG
5. Robin Gosens, Union Berlin
After five years of almost uninterrupted good times, it is with unfortunate timing that Union Berlin’s progress has stalled at home and abroad. Four defeats either side of their scrapping but ultimately forlorn defeat in the Santiago Bernabeu have Die Eisernen sat in midtable in the Bundesliga and it is perhaps ironic that a team that so often defied the laws of xG last season are now being outdone by the likes of Heidenheim in games where they have twice as many shots as their opponents.
Now, every neutral’s favorite side in the competition go into what could be the decisive fixture of their group stage campaign. Beat Braga at home and they should at the very least be well-placed for a top three finish, perhaps even a chance to duke it out with Napoli for what seems likely to be second place behind Real Madrid. Lose and it will be quite the struggle to ensure that their European adventure is not over by Christmas.
The bellwether for Union on Tuesday may prove to be Gosens, a player who puts the wing in wing back. At his best, he is a menace with his late runs into the box for back post crosses. Against Madrid he spent most of the game vying for aerial duels around his own penalty area. If Union can unlock their rapid transition game along the wings then their German international could be a real threat. If, however, Gosens’ box involvement in the box is more out of possession than in, one suspects this could be a bruising night for the Champions League Cinderellas.
How to watch Union Berlin vs. Braga
Matchday 2 TV Schedule
All times Eastern
Union Berlin vs. Braga
12:45 p.m.
Paramount+
Red Bull Salzburg vs. Rea Sociedad
12:45 p.m.
Paramount+
UEFA Champions League Today Pre-Match
2 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Network
The Golazo Show
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Napoli vs. Real Madrid
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Manchester United vs. Galatasaray
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Lens vs. Arsenal
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Inter vs. Benfica
3 p.m.
Paramount+
PSV vs. Sevilla
3 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Golazo Network
Copenhagen vs. Bayern Munich
3 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Network
UEFA Champions League Today Post-Match
5 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Network
The Champions Club
6 p.m.
CBS Sports Golazo Network
Atletico Madrid vs. Feyenoord
12:45 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Golazo Network
Antwerp vs. Shakhtar Donetsk
12:45 p.m.
Paramount+
UEFA Champions League Today Pre-Match
2 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Network
The Golazo Show
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Newcastle United vs. Paris Saint-Germain
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Borussia Dortmund vs. AC Milan
3 p.m.
Paramount+
RB Leipzig vs. Manchester City
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Porto vs. Barcelona
3 p.m.
Paramount+
Crvena zvezda vs. Young Boys
3 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Golazo Network
Celtic vs. Lazio
3 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Network
UEFA Champions League Today Post-Match
5 p.m.
Paramount+ / CBS Sports Network
The Champions Club
6 p.m.
CBS Sports Golazo Network
Kickin’ It
7 p.m.
CBS Sports Golazo Network