Liverpool Beat Villarreal 4-3 From Two Goals Down as Foden's Hat-Trick Headlines a 22-Goal Champions League Night

LIVERPOOL · MANCHESTER · ROME · PORTO · STUTTGART · TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2026

Liverpool fought back from two goals down to beat Villarreal 4-3 at Anfield. Phil Foden scored a hat-trick as Manchester City brushed AEK Athens aside at the Etihad. Those were only the two loudest results in a late window that produced 22 goals across five games on Champions League Matchday 3. There was also a first win of the campaign in Rome, an away win built on one finish and a wall of defending in Porto, and a red card that turned a German party into a siege in Stuttgart. Liverpool and Manchester City supplied the noise. The other three grounds supplied the reminders that this competition does not grade on noise.

Anfield gets the seven-goal version of Liverpool

Andoni Iraola rotated like a man who trusts his squad completely, leaving Alexander Isak, Bradley Barcola and Florian Wirtz — three forwards who cost more than £100 million apiece, as theScore noted — on the bench with Brighton visiting on Sunday. For half an hour it looked like a misjudgment he would spend the week answering for. Villarreal's coach, Inigo Perez, once Iraola's assistant-in-waiting at Bournemouth before a work permit rerouted his career, knew exactly where the spaces in this system live, and his side walked into them. Four minutes in, Virgil van Dijk miscued a header back towards Alisson Becker and Georges Mikautadze finished coolly from close range. On 29 minutes Nathan Saliba picked out Sergi Cardona's run from left-back and Cardona steered the second past Alisson, and Anfield's 59,610 were watching the understudies lose a European tie at home.

Crosses fixed it. Liverpool FC's official report tells the comeback plainly: on 36 minutes Alexis Mac Allister leapt to meet Kostas Tsimikas' corner and glanced a header into the far corner, and at the end of the half Ronald Araujo nodded in Rio Ngumoha's teasing cross to the back post to level at 2-2. After the restart Peter Gulacsi denied Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo and Wirtz, on at half-time, before Ngumoha — who, The Times' live coverage noted, became the youngest player in Liverpool's history to score or assist in this competition with his first of the night — skipped away from his markers and put the ball on a plate for Mac Allister, whose close-range finish crashed in off the crossbar on 65 minutes. Three minutes later Gakpo found Wirtz, who collected the pass and found the bottom corner for his first goal since April. Ayoze Perez hit the post for Villarreal and Tani Oluwaseyi's back-post volley on 87 minutes turned the last few minutes into the kind of noise Anfield specialises in, but the result stood: 4-3, nine points from three matches, and, as Reuters' roundup put it, Liverpool alongside Paris Saint-Germain at the top of the standings on goal difference. The defending remains a genuine problem — Liverpool's last two European games have now produced 16 goals, per The Times — but a team that can be this bad for 30 minutes and this good for 60 is not a team anyone will volunteer to play.

Foden, rested Haaland, and a City side with goals to spare

Manchester City did the opposite of struggling. Enzo Maresca made eight changes from the weekend, left Erling Haaland in the stands entirely, and handed a start to 17-year-old Floyd Samba in his place, in what Manchester City's official site recorded as the club's 150th fixture in this competition. It made no difference to the scoreline's direction. Elliot Anderson steered home a rebound from Enzo Fernandez's free-kick on 12 minutes for his first goal since joining the club, Allan crashed an effort off the crossbar, and then Phil Foden took the evening over. Sky Sports' report describes a player who had waited ten months for a goal before scoring against Ipswich at the weekend; he scored three here, the first two of them created by Rico Lewis — a stabbed finish beyond Alberto Brignoli on 34 minutes and a strike guided into the top corner on 65 — either side of the game's one moment of Greek resistance, Stavros Pilios driving across Gianluigi Donnarumma on 52 minutes to make it 2-1.

The resistance lasted five minutes. Rayan Cherki, supplied by Foden, dragged the ball back and finished crisply into the bottom corner on 57 minutes, a goal City's own report called quite brilliant, and Foden completed his hat-trick — the fourth of his City career, per the club — from close range on 76 minutes after Lewis released Ryan McAidoo down the right. Five City players made their Champions League debuts across the night, and the second win of the league phase, after the defeat by PSG that Sportsnet noted City were bouncing back from, was achieved at something close to walking pace. Foden himself was measured afterwards, telling TNT Sports, in comments carried by Sky Sports, that he has still got a long way to go before he is back at his best. AEK's coach, Marko Nikolic, was blunter about the gap: the quality of City's finishing, he said, was brutal, and his side had perhaps shown the hosts too much respect. On this evidence the respect was simply accurate scouting.

Roma finally win one, and win it early

Roma's first two league-phase matches had been a draw at Fenerbahce and a defeat by Real Madrid in a game they led by two goals until the 82nd minute, as Football Italia's report recalled, so the Olimpico was entitled to its nerves when Kenan Bajric made a double block to deny Donyell Malen and Niccolo Pisilli in the opening minutes. They did not survive the first half. Lorenzo Pellegrini won and delivered the free-kick from which Daniele Ghilardi headed back across goal for Mario Hermoso to nod in at the back post on 21 minutes, per Flashscore's report, and on 39 minutes Nahuel Molina finished after goalkeeper Dominik Takac palmed Malen's attempt into his path. The second half was a procession: Matias Soule kept a ball alive that was running out of play and Malen laid on Pisilli's finish on 52 minutes, then Cesar Blackman brought down Wesley and Malen converted the penalty himself on 58. The fixture record's shot count, carried by Oddsivio, finished 26 to 1 in Roma's favour, with ten on target to Slovan's none. Gian Piero Gasperini's side had their first Champions League win of the season wrapped up with half an hour to spare, and could afford to withdraw Malen and Wesley immediately after the penalty they had combined to create.

One goal is enough for PSV at the Dragao

Porto and PSV arrived at the Estadio do Dragao as, in Flashscore's phrase, a battle of matchday-two losers seeking redemption, and for an hour the redemption kept slipping. Ivan Perisic headed narrowly wide inside seven minutes, Filip Kostic miscued the first half's best chance under pressure from Alberto Costa, and Esmir Bajraktarevic hit the post after the restart. The goal, when it came on 57 minutes, was the game's neatest piece of work: a sequence of passes inside the Porto box ending with Sven Mijnans finding Guus Til, who tapped in at the far post for his third Champions League goal. Porto threw on a triple change and then threw everything else, and only what Flashscore called miraculous, well-improvised defending — bodies on the line in near-comical fashion — kept the equaliser out. It finished 1-0: PSV's first win of the campaign, and their first clean sheet in the competition proper in 19 attempts. Porto, as Sportsnet's roundup noted, have now lost three from three, and a famous home ground is becoming an unhappy one in this competition.

Stuttgart run the game, Atletico take the point

Stuttgart played the best first half of any side in this window and took one point home from it. Bundesliga.com's report has the hosts forcing Jan Oblak into saves inside the first minute through Bilal El Khannouss and Josha Vagnoman, with Angelo Stiller and Jamie Leweling also testing him, before the pressure told on 36 minutes: Marc Pubill lost the ball to Stiller near his own box, Leweling took it on and drove it into the bottom corner for a lead nobody could call undeserved. Atletico's only first-half shot on target was a David Hancko header straight at Fabian Bredlow. Diego Simeone's answer arrived at half-time and took about ninety seconds to work: Ademola Lookman, on for Jonathan David, crossed for Julian Alvarez to volley into the top corner on 47 minutes, the substitute's instant impact recorded by both Bundesliga.com and Bulinews.

The tie then tilted back towards Stuttgart for good — or should have. Morten Hjulmand was shown a straight red card on 64 minutes for a challenge that caught Stiller above the ankle, Lorenz Assignon's cross put a header on a plate for Grischa Promel, who steered it narrowly past the post, and Simeone sent on Robin Le Normand to shut the game down. Stuttgart, who had won their first two matches in this competition and would have joined Liverpool and PSG on nine points with a third, per Sportsnet, could not find the winner their performance argued for. Atletico, who sit on four points from three matches per Into the Calderon's ratings report and have now won only one of their last six away games in this competition per Flashscore, will file it as a point gained on a night when they were outplayed for long stretches. Both filings are honest. That is what makes the result sting in Stuttgart and sing in Madrid.

What the late window leaves behind

Three rounds into the league phase, the late window's arithmetic is simple at the top and unforgiving at the bottom. Liverpool are perfect on nine points and level with the champions; Manchester City and Roma have their campaigns properly moving, City terrifyingly deep and Roma finally converting dominance into a result; PSV's season has a pulse and a clean sheet; Stuttgart remain unbeaten and will wonder how; Atletico's four points have been earned the hard way, which is the only way they ever earn them; and Porto's three defeats leave them with no margin left at all. Matchday 4 will not wait for anyone to feel sorry for themselves.