The Stadio Olimpico had done everything right. Roma's fans had rolled out the red carpet for Mourinho's return, the team had played with the full-throttle intensity Gasperini demands, and Donyell Malen had put them 3-1 up with two goals in six second-half minutes. Then the corners started. Real Madrid's comeback from 3-1 down to win 4-3 is the kind of result that makes the Champions League's league phase worth watching despite all the structural complaints about too many games. Carlos Espi tucked home a rebound. Endrick powered a header. Antonio Rudiger — against his former club — guided home the winner in the 90th minute. All three from set pieces. All three in seven minutes. It was less tactical genius than pure will and aerial dominance meeting a Roma defence that simply stopped defending the near post. Mbappe's 72nd Champions League goal on his 100th appearance deserves its own line. He is the youngest player to reach the century mark at 27, and his equaliser — a deflected shot after a Hermoso misjudgement — moved him past Raul Gonzalez into the all-time top five. The goal itself was scrappy; the milestone is not. Elsewhere, Bodo/Glimt's 1-0 win over Borussia Dortmund extends one of European football's most delightful running jokes. The artificial turf of Aspmyra stadium has now claimed Dortmund alongside Manchester City, Inter Milan, and Sporting as recent victims. Fredrik Sjovold's 52nd-minute strike was enough. Dortmund, last season's runners-up, could not respond. The Norwegian side's home record against elite opposition is becoming genuinely historic. Aston Villa's 6-0 demolition of Fenerbahce was their largest European victory ever. Nicolas Jackson scored twice, Ross Barkley added two more, and Emery's side maintained their perfect European record this season while winning at Villa Park for the first time in any competition. Shakhtar Donetsk, playing at Stamford Bridge as their nomadic Champions League home, came from behind to beat AEK Athens 3-1 in front of thousands of Ukrainian supporters draped in national flags. The night's results leave Real Madrid on six points from two league phase matches, Roma on one. The early table is forming, and Real's capacity for late violence — ugly, undeserved, but ruthlessly effective — remains the defining characteristic of their European identity. They were outplayed for 83 minutes and won anyway. This is what separates Champions League drama from domestic football. No league season offers the compressed emotional violence of a seven-minute, three-goal comeback in a hostile stadium against a team that did almost everything right. Roma will look at the tape and see a performance that deserved more. Real will look at the scoreline and see a team that knows how to win when it shouldn't.
