Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé celebrates with teammates after scoring their second penalty in their win over Olympique de Marseille.
(OSCAR DEL POZO via Getty Images)
The opening day of the 2025-26 Champions League saw a debut win from Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, Qarabağ stun the Portuguese League runners up, Kylian Mbappé score twice, and a goal-fest between Juventus and Borussia Dortmund.
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In the early action, Arsenal took care of Athletic Bilbao 2-0 with second-half goals from substitutes Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard. In the Netherlands, Royale Union SG won for the first time in the Champions League with a 3-1 victory over Dutch side PSV. Promise David’s penalty in the ninth minute opened the scoring and Anouar Ait El Hadj doubled the champions of Belgium’s league before halftime.
It was a winning day for Premier League teams with Tottenham also grabbing three points with a 1-0 win via a fourth-minute own goal from Villarreal goalkeeper Luíz Júnior.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, rallied past Marseille 2-1 after a first-half goal from USMNT’s Timothy Weah. It was the first time an American scored a Champions League goal in the Bernabéu. In the 72nd minute, Real Madrid went down to 10 men after an ill-advised headbutt saw captain Dani Carvajal sent off. But a pair of penalties from Mbappé secured the victory.
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The French superstar now has 50 career goals with Los Blancos, though the last one was incredibly controversial after Marseille’s Facundo Medina got hit with a hand-ball penalty while trying to slide in. That was upheld after a review, too, despite it looking like his arm came down on top of the ball.
FK Qarabağ stunned Benfica 3-2 after Oleksiy Kashchuk put the Azerbaijan club ahead in the 86th minute. Benfica went up 2-0 by the 16th minute, but Leandro Andrade cut the lead by halftime and Camilo Durán equalized three minutes into the second half.
The match of the day was in Turin as Juventus went from trailing 4-2 in the 86th minute to rescuing a point with goals from Dušan Vlahović and Lloyd Kelly in stoppage time during a 4-4 draw.
Dušan Vlahović and Lloyd Kelly complete the come back as Juventus score twice in extra time to earn the draw against Dortmund 🤯 pic.twitter.com/LcY6UtdBx7
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) September 16, 2025
All eight goals came in the second half.
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Champions League schedule – Matchday 1 results
Arsenal 2, Athletic Club 0
Union St.-Gilloise 3, PSV Eindhoven 1
FK Qarabağ 3, Benfica 2
Borussia Dortmund 4, Juventus 4
Real Madrid 2, Marseille 1
Tottenham 1, Villarreal 0
Here’s how the matches unfolded in real time:
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