Aston Villa Make It Three Wins From Three as LASK Stun Sporting 3-2 in Lisbon

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2026

Matchday 3 of the Champions League league phase closed on Wednesday with one favourite doing exactly what favourites are supposed to do and one favourite finding out what this competition does to you when you switch off for five minutes. At Villa Park, Aston Villa beat Viking FK 3-1 to make it three wins from three, a performance Sky Sports described as control from the start against the Norwegian champions who had drawn 3-3 with Bayern Munich last week. In Lisbon, Sporting CP led inside five minutes, were level inside 15, and lost 3-2 to LASK Linz after Saša Kalajdžić and Kryštof Daněk scored five minutes apart in the second half. Sportradar's fixture records, the Bundesliga's livetickers and UEFA's own results list all record the same finals and the same scorers as the queue snapshot for both matches. Start at Villa Park, where the only suspense was whether Villa would finish the night on top of the whole league phase.

Barkley nods Villa in front, Buendía doubles it from the spot

Villa's side had a makeshift look, with João Gomes at right-back, and the Brazilian nearly opened the scoring himself when a cross was deflected against the underside of the bar early on, as Sky Sports recorded. Nicolas Jackson twice headed tamely at goalkeeper Arild Østbø in the opening exchanges, per theScore's agency report, and Villa's pressure told on 23 minutes: Ibrahim Mbaye's corner was nodded in by Ross Barkley for his third Champions League goal of the season — no Villa player has more, on Flashscore's count. Emiliano Buendía then came close with two good headed chances, the second of them drawing a fine save from Østbø, before he made amends from the penalty spot on 37 minutes. A VAR check ruled that Alysson had been clipped inside the box by Zlatko Tripić, and Buendía stroked the penalty home. The goal made him the first Villa player to score in four consecutive European appearances, per 101 Great Goals' report, and he finished the night with seven shots, the highest total for a Villa player in this season's competition on Flashscore's numbers.

The name running through all of it was Alysson. Sky Sports called the young winger the best player on the pitch, producing surely his best performance in a Villa shirt, and Buendía said the same to TNT Sports afterwards: “He was incredible. He's showing his potential, his ability on the wing. Also Ibrahim Mbaye as well — their speed, their qualities. It's going to help the team a lot.” Unai Emery echoed it in his press conference, saying some players “did a step forward in their confidence,” and that it was a step forward for both young wingers in Villa's idea. This is what a deep squad is supposed to look like in October: a rotated side, two young wide players deciding the game, and the senior men finishing the chances they create.

Heggheim's own goal puts Villa top — until Christiansen's volley takes it away

Viking, to their credit, came out after the break and asked questions they had not asked in the first half. Their head coach Morten Jensen said in his press conference, as Sky Sports reported, that his side had shown too much respect before half-time: “They were all over us and we did not create much offensively, which is rare for Viking.” The visitors forced Zion Suzuki into work, Tobias Moi testing him and Tripić forcing another save before Jesper Daland's powerful effort was tipped over the bar, as 101 Great Goals recorded. But the third goal, when it came on 62 minutes, was Villa's and it was Alysson again: racing through from deep on the counter, his low cross was diverted past his own goalkeeper by Henrik Heggheim. That goal took Villa into top spot in the league phase. Sky Sports recorded what the crowd did with that knowledge, chanting “We are top of the league” afterwards.

It lasted 22 minutes. On 84 minutes Peter Christiansen met a cross from the right with a brilliant volley, awarded after a VAR check, and the consolation goal dropped Villa back to second behind Paris Saint-Germain. Jensen took the second half as the visitors' consolation — his side drew it, scored at Villa Park in front of over 2,000 Norwegian fans, and can build on that. Villa's numbers, though, are the story of the group stage so far. Sky Sports' stat lines are startling for a club that was away from this competition for four decades: Villa are the second-quickest team ever to 20 European Cup wins, doing it in 30 matches to Real Madrid's 29; they have won each of their last 12 major European home games, the joint-longest run by an English team this century; and they are the first Europa League holders to win their first three games of a Champions League campaign since Manchester United in 2017. Add the earlier wins — 3-2 over Club Brugge and 6-0 over Fenerbahçe, per theScore — and an unbeaten run now at six in all competitions on Flashscore's count, and the Holte End tifo's message reads less like nostalgia than a scouting report: Villa have conquered before and are prepared for more.

In Lisbon, Suárez scores twice and Sporting still lose

If Villa's night was about control, Sporting's was about how little of it matters. Five minutes in at Estádio José Alvalade, Luis Suárez converted a penalty and the hosts, who had won their opening two games of the campaign, looked set for a third. Ten minutes later Christoph Lang fired LASK level with a right-foot shot from Kasper Jørgensen's assist, per Soccerzz's report, and the game stayed 1-1 through half-time despite Sporting holding most of the ball — the fixture data credits them with 61 percent possession and 15 shots to LASK's 11. The difference was what the shots were worth: LASK put seven of theirs on target to Sporting's four.

The decisive spell arrived just after the hour, and it was ruthlessly simple. On 63 minutes Robert Ljubičić set up Kalajdžić, who scored with a right-foot strike inside the box, in Soccerzz's description. Five minutes later Samuel Adeniran, who had only just come on for Lang, set up Daněk for a left-foot finish inside the area and 3-1. The Sun's live coverage called it what it was — Austrian minnows handing Portuguese giants a shock defeat — and the description travelling with the official highlights is just as plain: LASK's first Champions League victory of the campaign, earned away at one of the league phase's early pace-setters. ClutchBrief, citing BBC Sport, adds the context that makes it sting more: LASK had lost their previous eight away games in major European competition before this one.

Sporting threw on three attackers at 80 minutes — Jesse Derry, Luís Guilherme and Fotis Ioannidis, per Sportradar's fixture record — and Suárez gave them hope on 89 minutes with his second of the night, a left-foot finish. But there was no equaliser in the two added minutes, and Dietmar Kuhbauer's team had the win their five-minute burst deserved. Sporting stay on the six points from their opening two wins and travel to Shakhtar Donetsk on matchday 4; LASK, with a famous first win in hand, host Slovan Bratislava, per UEFA's fixture list.

What the last two games of matchday 3 leave behind

Put the two results together and matchday 3 ends with the league phase's shape getting stranger, not simpler. Villa, Betis and Real Madrid all have perfect records, and of the three it is Villa who have done it with the most rotation and the least fuss — a rotated side, a makeshift right-back, and a 3-1 win that was only ever in doubt for the 22 minutes between the third goal and a volley good enough to change the standings. Sporting's defeat is the other lesson of the round: two wins, an early penalty, 61 percent of the ball, and still beaten by a team that took its five minutes. The Champions League does not grade on control. It grades on the moments, and on Wednesday night in Birmingham and Lisbon the moments belonged to Barkley, Buendía, Alysson — and to Kalajdžić and Daněk, whose names LASK fans will be saying for a while.