AC Milan and Real Madrid began the Champions League with 2-0 victories on Wednesday night as English rivals Chelsea and Arsenal opened with high-scoring wins.<\/p>\n
Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored his first two goals for AC Milan since joining on loan from Barcelona, leading the Rossoneri over visiting Auxerre.<\/p>\n
At Madrid, new Real coach Jose Mourinho presided as the nine-time champions beat Ajax in the stadium he won the competition with Inter Milan in May.<\/p>\n
Real went ahead in the 31st minute, and Higuain doubled the lead in the 73rd.<\/p>\n
In London, Cesc Fabregas and Carlos Vela each scored twice in Arsenal\u2019s 6-0 rout of Portugal\u2019s Braga\u2014Fabregas\u2019 first Arsenal goals since breaking his right leg Match 31 during a Champions League match against Barcelona.<\/p>\n
It was a closer match in the other Group H encounter, with Shakhtar Donetsk captain Dario Srna\u2019s 71st-minute free kick giving the Ukrainian champions a 1-0 victory over Partizan Belgrade.<\/p>\n
Chelsea, off to a 4-0 start in the Premier League, beat newcomer Zilina 4-1 despite the absence of suspended striker Didier Drogba. The Blues raced into a 3-0 lead inside 30 minutes as Nicolas Anelka\u2019s cross was turned in by Michael Essien before the French forward scored two goals himself.<\/p>\n
Soon after, Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech almost gifted the home side an equalizer, fumbling Robert Jez\u2019s free kick before recovering to stop the ball going into the net.<\/p>\n
Daniel Sturridge scored Chelsea\u2019s fourth in the 48th after latching onto Yossi Benayoun\u2019s through ball.<\/p>\n
Zilina\u2019s goal came in the 55th when an unmarked Tomas Oravec pounced on the loose ball from Branislav Ivanovic\u2019s deflection after Cech had failed to hold a cross.<\/p>\n
In the other Group F match, defender Cesar Azpilicueta scored a late own-goal to give Spartak Moscow a 1-0 win at Marseille, which wasted several scoring chances.<\/p>\n
Bayern Munich, beaten by Mourinho\u2019s Inter in last May\u2019s final, defeated visiting AS Roma 2-0 on late goals by Thomas Mueller in the 79th minute and Miroslav Klose in the 83rd.<\/p>\n
The goals came quicker in the group\u2019s other match. Ionut Rada scored in the ninth minute and Lacina Traore in the 12th for Cluj, clinching a 2-1 victory over Basel, which got a goal on Valentin Stoker\u2019s header in first-half injury time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Real went ahead in the 31st minute, and Higuain doubled…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[10940],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}