 Welcome back to the Sports Max zone. We kicked things off with football and the UEFA Champions League. Matchday two of the group stage ended a short while ago and in group age at the Dragon Stadium in Portugal, Spanish champions Barcelona paid a visit to FC Portugal. We have the highlights. And it's the visitors from Spain who get the game underway. Nice turn, opportunities here and the shot is patted down. Looking ball, which is collected by Guilherme, who's running at Chalcancelo here. Roll back into a good position. Driven into the box, this could fall anywhere. That'll be a penalty, will it? Cunde, as Teraini turned, appeared to catch the Porto striker. Guilherme's little ball is a good one. Pulled back in, Teraini attacking the near post and Ter Stegen got himself in the right place and got himself a little bit lucky as well, maybe. Yeah, deflection on the way to the keeper. Just slips out of his hands for a second, but... Estaccio square. This looks interesting. Test taken right behind the shot. Pretty comfortable save. Arajo's forward ball and there could be a break on here because Chal Felix is charging forward. Ferran Torres is in support. This is Ferran Torres who goes for goal and it's saved by Diogo Costa barring, crossing the eyes and dotting the T's as the host of the World Cup in 2030. Here's a great ball through to Ferran Torres and Barcelona lead and Porto, who have had the lion's share of opportunities in this game and have missed them, fall behind in first half-stoppage time. They've been below par for much of this half, but they're going to go in at halftime. A goal to the good. It's a goal. Go on down well and Test taken there again. Now, I wonder whether Toremi was offside or not. Brilliant pass by Pepa. It's all sorts of space. He might just have stayed onside, but it's a familiar theme now, isn't it? Getting into these kind of positions, but can't find the finish. That's a straight pass and there might be a sucker punch on again here as the ball is played into Ferran Torres and fair play to Fabio Cardoso for making the block, but the final whistle is gone and Barcelona have taken charge in group H, making it two wins in two. All right, a Ferran Torres goal there. Getting the win for Barcelona, our football correspondent, Juan Giarango was following the match and he joins us this afternoon. Juan, how are you? Hey, what's up everybody? How are you? How's it going? We're doing well. I mean, wins for Barcelona, wins for Manchester City. Things are good on our end. Talk to me about Ferran Torres' goal today and of course, you know, the fact that he came in for Lewandowski who picked up that injury and he sealed the winner. Well, it's a big win for Barcelona, especially, I mean, as you saw in the first half and in parts of the second where Puerto went for broke, yeah, there were a couple of controversial calls here and there, but I think for the most part, the team that ended up, I guess, regulating the match a little bit more ended up winning. And also, to me, the man of the match ends up being Marc-André Terstegen, is he's accustomed to us during the past few years of being that really that wall in the back of that defense, being the most consistent aspect of Barcelona over the past decade almost. You end up seeing how he ends up really becoming this contributor and this leader of sorts in very difficult times. And that being said, I mean, you got to remember also, Barça played, I think, the last seven minutes or so, a man down after Gavi was sent off. But more importantly, it's capitalizing on mistakes of Porto that ended up being the difference. That's the reason why Ferran Torres was able to score the only goal in the match, taking advantage of an errant pass, of an errant ball that ends up really falling in favor and Joe Velik's finding the right target, finding the right play to be able to finish it. Yeah, that's, you know, definitely I have to agree with you because we're spoken about Terstegen last season, a lot about him and, you know, the reason why Barcelona was able to win La Liga had a lot of credit, had to go to him one. Now, of course, today we see the young star, Lameen Yamal, stepping up. So it's two opposites. We had the senior man doing what he had to do. Lameen Yamal is having a beautiful breakout season and he's one to really watch very closely. Yeah, you know what, it's interesting you say that, to watch him very closely, we're going to have to watch him very closely for a long time. It's 16, almost 17 years of age. I mean, today he became one of the youngest players in Champions League history to be able to start. First of all, to be able to contribute and to be able to play the way he did. I mean, it shows you the temperament that this young man has and, of course, the sky is the limit in terms of what he's capable of doing on the pitch. Yeah, two wins for Barcelona from two matches. You touched on it, but I want to talk a bit some more. Gavi, a player that I have a lot of time for being sent off today, not good for Barcelona, but, you know, they'll walk away and take the win, the three points. Well, yeah, and it puts a month closer to the initial objective. I think as the tournament progresses that objective ends up getting pushed forward as much as possible. But yeah, you're right. Is it a big loss? Yeah, it is a pretty big loss. But then that was part of the gamble that Gavi had when he made the substitutions originally, leaving a bunch of players that were already with a yellow card on the pitch, saying, Hey, you know what, you have to be able to understand and manage the game. And well, in that particular moment, Gavi wasn't capable of doing it. But again, he's one of those youngsters that more often than not has been vital to Barca's success over the past nearly year. Ever since year plus, Ever since Gavi's taken over. Yeah. And Juan, just before you leave that, they, a lot of people still not completely sold on Gavi as a top flight coach. And obviously, Barcelona is in the mode of trying to recapture some of their glory days. A tough game today. Porto isn't an easy team. They were actually statistically, they had more dangerous attacks and more shots on goal than Barcelona did. But overall, seeing what you saw today and the opener that they had back to back wins now for them. Do you see this Barcelona team building and putting themselves in a position to challenge for the title? Well, I think that that's a bit of a target that's a little bit too far still for them. Maybe we have to see how when they start facing stiffer opposition, when they face the arsenals, the cities, the Bayerns of the world, see how they react in those types of situations. The Real Madrid, although they've had a pretty good success against Real Madrid over the past couple of encounters. But that being said, like I said previously, you have to start seeing that when they do get out of the group stage and into the round of 16 and progressively. So how do they start performing? And it's a long term project for Xavi. And yes, is he going to have detractors? Absolutely. Because obviously his career is a little bit different compared to most European managers where it started and where it's gone to. It's something that really ends up kind of dividing, I guess, polls when it comes to analyzing a coach and where he's come from and what he's capable of doing and what he's been able to do with the team that he's had in front of him. Of course, not being able to get out of the Champions League over the past two seasons for Barcelona ends up being a burden to him. And again, this is the year that he's going to truly be tested on that level. Yeah, I had to ask because there are a lot of Barcelona fans watching. So I guess they just wanted you to take on it. All right, well, we're going to continue now and Manchester City, they entered today's contest with RB Leipzig on the back of two successive domestic losses. Of course, they walked away as a three one winners over Manchester, over RB Leipzig. One, you watched them today. What did you make of their performance? Manchester City is back. Well, were they ever gone? Yeah, over the weekend? You were probably freaking out because they lost two games and oh my god, the world is coming to an end and oh, what is what is to be of Manchester City? No, but you know what? A couple of weeks ago, Pep Borre Diolo was asked about why Julian Alvarez, you know, what is the role? Why is he still there if he's not a starter? And he said, well, he is a starter, but the rotation of it all doesn't really have him in every sense of the word starting every time. Of course, when you have an early Holland, that ends up being very difficult to be able to just kind of like brush aside. Today he comes in and he ends up making that difference. I mean, we have to start from backwards to forward from end to beginning in this particular case because he comes in and does change the dynamic of the game a lot comes in and scores. And of course, that towards in stoppage time is the one that kind of sets off everything that scores the game pretty much the one that kills off the game. And you see what he's capable of doing alongside early Holland. And you say, why can't he play more? But the impact is always there every time he comes off. I've heard even in South America a couple of times, people comparing him already to only gonna sushi. And I think that's, I don't know. I think that you have a more skillful player in Julian Alvarez and a more intelligent player and a more diverse player or that can play in different areas of the pitch compared to soul shire. But if you look at what he is capable of doing for city, he opens a lot of other options. But then today, you had a lot of other performers being able to come through. I mean, Phil Foden scores the opener. And you see this city side that said, okay, fine, we got, we got hit twice. Big deal. Let's go ahead. And even when they, when they had the match equalize, you saw them continuing to go forward and persist and that ball eventually was going to get through. But again, it had to be a player like Alvarez to truly make the difference from outside. Yeah, and Juan, you know, whenever Manchester City is on an unbeaten run, people talk about how great Pep Guardiola has been tactically. They speak about all the different things that he does. Today, you know, I felt his use of the substitution was so brilliant, right? Because these players come on as subs, both of them, of course, get the goals for you. And to me, that's one of Pep's style, you know, him being a magician, a tactician versus starting the players. Because many people, you know, I tend to, when I'm looking at the matches, I tend to always look to see, you know, what the viewers have to see, what they're seeing on Twitter and all that, well, X now. And for me, everybody was saying, you know, why doesn't he start Julian Alvarez, why is it Phil Ford and starting just randomly calling our things? But to me, I felt as if using these players as subs work for Pep. So why not? Yeah, you have to look at the match and contextualize it and see, okay, I mean, for someone to say Julian Alvarez has to start an early Holland dozen, that's a bit of a stretch and mind you, I understand both sides, but it's kind of hard to kind of say, well, yeah, you're right on either one. But it's so complicated with the amount of players you have, and you have to keep a rotation, you have to keep a certain level of freshness, knowing that you have match, basically every three to four days, knowing that you're going to have a break very soon. And then also going from, I don't know, November to January, and going into February, if you start including the FA Cup, the amount of matches city is going to have, including Champions League, you have to have everybody playing and having a certain level of performance on a consistent basis. So we have to look at it from that perspective, from the collective, instead of looking at individual, oh, so and so is not playing. Well, so and so has to be able to play and perform in certain levels. And they all have so far. Yeah, okay, they had a couple of losses. And I know it's something frustrating for city fans, for now city fans that are looking at this and saying, oh my God, they lost two games, Peck Guardiola was the worst manager ever. And now they went today and also he's the best in the world once again. Yeah. Juan, before we leave Man City, part of their strength for the past few years has been their depth. I saw one of the match reviews today that had Rico Luis, the 18 year old as their man of the match. How good was he today? You don't have to tell me. I don't have to say it too. Pep said it. And it was this, I mean, his quote was just one word. Wow. That's basically what he said at the press conference. And he's absolutely right because Rico Luis was able to play a sensational game today. And it's not only the players that he's acquired, it's also the players that have been able to come up and grow within city and truly be a major force in European football. All right, Juan. Well, we're going to take a quick break. But when we return, we'll continue. We still have football to talk about. We're going to be talking about football in Europe as we preview the Europa League. Stay with us.