Arsenal and Chelsea had a Champions League night to forget Tuesday as a Robert Lewandowski hat trick helped Bayern Munich crush Dinamo Zagreb.
Champion Barcelona, missing injured icon Lionel Messi, followed up its opening Group E draw at Roma with a stirring come-from-behind 2-1 win at Bayer Leverkusen.
The Germans appeared to have the three points in the bag after Kyriakos Papadopoulos’s header before the break.
But Luis Suarez turned the game around in the final 10 minutes as Sergi Roberto tapped home the rebound after the Uruguayan’s initial effort had been saved.
And the former Liverpool striker thumped home a stunning effort to hand Barca a hard-fought three points, two minutes later.
With Roma sent on its way 3-2 by BATE Borisov it left Barca shading Group E. Jose Mourinho’s return to Porto, the team which the Portuguese guided to the 2004 title, proved an unhappy affair.
Andre Andre’s opener for Porto late in the first half was quickly canceled out by a superb Willian free-kick, but Maicon’s 52nd-minute header proved to be the difference in this Group G clash played at a rip-roaring pace.
Dynamo Kiev, 2-0 winner over Maccabi Tel Aviv, tops the table on goal difference with Chelsea in third. Arguably the most stunning result of the evening emerged from the Emirates Stadium, where Greek champion Olympiakos shocked Arsenal 3-2 to leave the Gunners stone last in Group F.
The Greeks, ending a 12-match losing run in England, left Arsenal and its coach Arsene Wenger ashen-faced, and the team’s fans jeering at the final whistle.
After falling behind to Felipe Pardo’s deflected opener, Arsenal equalized through Theo Walcott. But then a horrendous mistake from goalkeeper David Ospina, selected over regular first choice Petr Cech, allowed a Kostas Fortounis corner to slip through his grasp for an embarrassing own goal.
Alexis Sanchez dragged Arsenal back into it with a second half equalizer, but incredibly the north Londoners imploded again with more slack defending gifting Iceland striker Alfred Finnbogason the winner.
Beaten in the group curtain raiser in Zagreb Arsenal is now up against it to extricate itself from the pool stages.
To compound its plight free-shooting Bayern Munich awaits, the German giant flexing its muscles in Zagreb.
Bayern tops the table, Pep Guardiola’s side cruising toward the knockout stage after Lewandowski’s treble, and goals from Douglas Costa and Mario Goetze steamrollered Dinamo Zagreb 5-0.
“We played in a very concentrated fashion from the start and when you take your goal chances, the game was over after 30 minutes,” said Bayern captain Philipp Lahm.
Poland hot-shot Lewandowski has now scored 10 goals in his last three games after netting five in just nine spectacular minutes of Bayern’s 5-1 hammering of Wolfsburg last Tuesday before claiming two more in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Mainz.
Elsewhere, Zenit St Petersburg remained unbeaten with a 2-1 home win over Belgian outfit Gent to top Group H from Valencia, 1-0 winner at Lyon.
