5 things that caught the eye in this week's Champions League

The "Champiooooonsss" League is back and with it returns the excitement and football of the highest order for the remainder of the season. The first round of group matches saw goals galore with Chelsea picking up the highest margin of a victory with a 6-0 win over Qarabag whereas Napoli suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at the hands of Shakhtar Donetsk.

The biggest match of the mid-week fixtures saw Barcelona host Juventus at Camp Nou. The Catalans eased past to a 3-0 win and staked their claims for a hand at the Champions League crown. Without further ado, let's take a look at the five moments which caught the eye in this week's set of Champions League matches:

#5 Gareth Bale booed off at Santiago Bernabeu

In Real Madrid's 3-0 win over APOEL Nicosia, there was one aspect which was not pleasing to the eye. When Gareth Bale was taken off in the 82nd minute for Borja Mayoral, a section of the Bernabeu faithful jeered their own player in another embarrassing episode for the Real Madrid boo boys. Though it was not a below the par performance by the Welshman, Bale had long been on the target for a section of the Madrid fan base.

Casemiro sprung up to Bale's defence as the Brazilian said, "You can see that Bale is working, he wants to score goals and he's fighting to help the club." Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo scored a brace and entered the history books by scoring in the first game of the Champions League for Real Madrid for the sixth season in a row.

#4 Premier League on the rise again

Manchester United continued their brilliant start under Jose Mourimho

Since Chelsea's win in 2012, English clubs' dominance at the biggest of stages has been on the drop. In the last five years, only Chelsea and Manchester City have reached the final four of the competition whereas last season, Leicester City went the furthest of all teams until the quarter-final stage.

This season, Premier League has representation from as many as five teams and barring Liverpool, each team got off to a perfect start. Spurs fought hard to win 3-1 against Borussia Dortmund as Manchester United eased past FC Basel 3-0. Manchester City hammered Feyenoord 4-0 and Chelsea thrashed Qarabag 6-0. Liverpool also drew 2-2 against Sevilla in a game which they should have won. All in all, this can be said as a perfect start for all the English teams in their bid to regain their lost dominance in Europe.

#3 Finally some Wembley luck for Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs finally had some luck at Wembley

They say that you can never make a rented place your home in London. Tottenham Hotspur have been facing the same problem since shifting base temporarily to the Wembley Stadium. One win in last 11 matches and just a point in two Premier League matches this season meant Borussia Dortmund were smelling blood.

Dortmund had a brilliant first half and had most of the ball. They should have equalized in the second half but a bad refereeing decision meant it was not to be. Spurs rode their luck and punished Dortmund because of some substandard goalkeeping from Roman Burki. This was a big win for Spurs and will finally end the Wembley hoodoo for Mauricio Pochettino and his men.

#2 Mbappe, Cavani, Neymar - Europe's next most threatening trio

Neymar got on the score sheet once again

No one can be said as serious about winning the Champions League as Paris Saint Germain. You don't spend €400 million in a bid to win Ligue 1! Neymar and Kylian Mbappe along with Edinson Cavani were said to be the players which will bring Paris closer to achieving their dream and the away game against Celtic was said to be their first real test.

And the troika got on the score sheet in under 40 minutes. Neymar has already had a hand in 5 goals and 5 assists, Mbappe has scored two and assisted one while Cavani's brace made him the club's top scorer in their European Cup history with 22 goals. Though the trio is far from the end product and have a lot of work to do before they face tougher challenges, the writing is on the wall that MCN is here to stay and the other contenders will have to take notice of them.

#1 Lionel Messi's psychological win over Juventus and Gianluigi Buffon

Lionel Messi finally broke his duck against Gianluigi Buffon

Lionel Messi has had to prove his greatness time and again to the world but each time he has done that in an enigmatic way. The Argentine's failure to score against Gianluigi Buffon in three attempts was considered as a big missing point from his career. Tuesday was seen as a perfect opportunity by many for Messi to break his duck and help FC Barcelona register a statement win. And the Messiah did not disappoint one bit!

Lionel Messi scored two, made another for Ivan Rakitic and was inches away from claiming his second hat-trick in a week. Both his goals were so sweetly hit that the legendary Buffon could just stand and watch the ball hit the corner of his net. The Argentine was fairly silent for the majority of the first half which is proved by the statistic that he did not have a touch in Juventus' final third for 40 odd minutes. But, as he has done time and again, Messi then scored two sensational goals to prove that he is still the real boss at the club!