Viking Steals the Show From Bayern in a 3-3 That Sums Up the Champions League's Madness

Some games don't move the table at all and still stick in the memory. The 3-3 draw between Viking FK and Bayern Munich in Stavanger was exactly that: a spectacle that turned Matchday 2 of the 2026-27 Champions League into something far more entertaining than the opener, when the big clubs had simply steamrolled the little ones.

The opening round had left a slightly uneasy feeling. PSG, Barcelona and Bayern had thrashed Slovan Bratislava, Feyenoord and Bodo/Glimt by a combined 16-2, while the three newcomers (LASK, Sabah and Viking) had been beaten 8-1 between them. It looked like the gap between Europe's giants and everyone else was only growing. Thankfully, the second matchday pushed back on that theory a bit.

Viking, the small club writing a big story

The Stavanger club, founded in 1899, already has a few European nights worth remembering: a draw with Barcelona in qualifying for the first-ever Champions League in 1992-93, a stunning 4-2 win over Chelsea in the 2002-03 UEFA Cup despite goals from Lampard and Terry, and now this 3-3 against Bayern that its fans will be talking about for years.

The match had everything. Viking came out firing and went up 2-0 before halftime. Bayern responded, as they always do, with a brilliant Konrad Laimer assist setting up Luis Diaz to level things. But Michael Olise's red card flipped the game on its head: Herman Haugen headed home an equalizer that caught Alphonso Davies off guard, and Peter Christiansen even forced a strong save out of Jonas Urbig in stoppage time. The expected-goals numbers clearly favored Bayern (3.3 xG to 0.7), but by the final whistle it was Viking who looked more likely to grab a fourth.

That Norwegian style, a mix of attacking ambition and defensive exposure, had already worked for Bodo/Glimt, who beat Borussia Dortmund that same week for their sixth straight home win in the competition. Between them, Viking and Bayern combined for ten goals across their first two league-phase matches, a stat that sums up this story pretty well.

PSG hits the gas again

Paris Saint-Germain are the kind of team that takes time to find their rhythm. This season started even worse than usual: they lost the Trophee des Champions to Lens and managed just two points from their first three Ligue 1 matches, at one point sitting level on points with Le Mans in 13th place. But across their last five matches, before and after the international break, they won all five by a combined score of 16-5.

That momentum showed up in Manchester. Visiting City, PSG went up 2-0 inside 15 minutes thanks to Desire Doue and Ousmane Dembele, then added a third before halftime through Vitinha. Erling Haaland pulled one back for the hosts, but Maghnes Akliouche sealed the 4-2 final in the 62nd minute. City had come into the match on an eight-game winning streak across all competitions and had just humiliated Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield, yet PSG had the game put away almost before it started.

Manchester United, stuck between a rough patch and internal doubts

Manchester United's 2-0 loss at Atletico Madrid highlighted that strange gap between what the numbers say and what the scoreboard shows. The Old Trafford side rank sixth in the Premier League in expected goal difference, yet sit 13th in the table. Against Atletico, Leny Yoro's 74th-minute red card tipped a match that had been even up to that point.

Lisandro Martinez was blunt afterward about what he thinks the team is missing:

"We had a fantastic season last year and now we expect more from above, more players to compete, because a lot of other teams are also bringing in a lot of players. Atletico have an incredible team and they deserved to win today, but I expect more investment, 100 percent. I expect more from our technical director."Lisandro Martinez

United spent 173.2 million euros this summer to rebuild the midfield, bringing in Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, and have now spent 1.1 billion euros on transfers over the last five years. The problem, more than money, seems to be a lack of clear direction. This season's regular lineup includes players who made their debuts under Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Erik ten Hag, Ruben Amorim and Michael Carrick. That many different styles rarely add up to a solid identity.

Serie A, the big absence

Of the nine leagues with multiple representatives in this Champions League, only three are averaging at least 2.0 points per game: the Premier League (2.4), La Liga (2.4) and the Bundesliga (2.0). Further down sit Ligue 1 (1.5, though six of those nine points belong to PSG alone), the Primeira Liga (1.5, all of it from Sporting CP), the Eredivisie (1.0) and even the Norwegian league (1.0).

Serie A, meanwhile, is off to a rough start. After a winless second matchday for all four of its representatives, the Italian clubs have managed just four points from their first eight matches. Como beat RB Leipzig comfortably in their European debut and Roma drew with Fenerbahce, and that's pretty much it for the positives. It's true that Como, Inter and Napoli all posted favorable expected-goal differences in their losses, a sign they created enough chances, but the underlying trend is harsh: Italy has produced just one quarterfinalist over the last three tournaments.

Matchday 2 standouts

Among the most eye-catching individual performances of the round were hat tricks from Bradley Barcola for Liverpool and Nicolo Tresoldi for Club Brugge, along with strong showings from Carlos Forbs and Romeo Vermant, also of the Belgian side, who dismantled Inter's midfield. Lautaro Martinez, despite a brace against Brugge, could have scored far more: he fired off 12 shots worth 3.0 expected goals and put nine of them on target.

Also standing out were LASK striker Florian Flecker, who scored twice in the first 45 minutes against Liverpool, and Vedat Muriqi for Fenerbahce, alongside regulars like Erling Haaland, Ademola Lookman, Eberechi Eze and Luis Diaz.

The power rankings

Off this start, Barcelona look like the best team in Europe right now: two Champions League wins with a combined score of 9-2, and a perfect ten wins from ten matches across all competitions this season, outscoring opponents 43-9 overall. Behind them come PSG, sitting just sixth in Ligue 1 but rampant in Europe, and Arsenal, methodical and solid.

Further back are Bayern Munich, who are a bit worrying for conceding early goals in nearly every recent match and who now lose Olise to suspension after his red card; Manchester City, who lived through a week of extremes by thrashing Liverpool before falling to PSG; and Real Madrid, settled once again into that familiar middle ground so typical of their Champions League campaigns.

Aston Villa stand out for their turnaround, having won just once in their first six matches of the season and now unbeaten in five with 17 goals scored. Sporting CP, unbeaten since April, and Atletico Madrid, winners of five straight after their loss to Liverpool, round out the top group. At the other end of the table, Viking close out the round as the sentimental story of the week, while Slovan Bratislava face a tough run of fixtures to get their first points on the board.