Champions League: Rashford scores twice in Barcelona win as De Bruyne loses on Man City return

Audio By Carbonatix

Marcus Rashford proved the perfect replacement for Lamine Yamal in Barcelona’s 2-1 win at Newcastle in the Champions League on Thursday and Kevin De Bruyne watched mostly from the sideline as Napoli lost 2-0 at his former club Manchester City.

With Yamal missing through injury, Rashford — a loan signing from Manchester United — got a start on his return to England and scored both of Barcelona’s goals at St. James’ Park. The second took the breath away, a piledriver from 25 meters into the top corner.

De Bruyne was also back on English soil, at the club where he spent 10 years before an emotional farewell in May. But his Etihad Stadium return lasted 26 minutes before he was substituted following a red card for teammate Giovanni Di Lorenzo and City wound up a comfortable winner thanks to goals from Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku.

Haaland’s header put him on 50 goals in 49 Champions League appearances, with the Norway striker reaching that milestone quicker than any other player in the competition's history.

The comeback of the night went to Eintracht Frankfurt, which recovered from conceding in the eighth minute to beat Galatasaray 5-1.

Kairat, a tournament newcomer from Kazakhstan, made what is thought to be longest ever trek for a Champions League fixture — across three time zones and more than 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) — and lost 4-1 at Sporting Lisbon.

Club Brugge proved too hot to handle for Monaco.

The visitors were beaten 4-1 a day after their flight to Belgium was aborted because the air conditioning on the plane malfunctioned and players were forced to take their clothes off due to the excessively hot conditions.

Monaco, which ended up flying out Thursday morning instead, was blown away by a three-goal burst in a 10-minute spell late in the first half, when Nicolò Tresoldi, Raphael Onyedika and Hans Vanaken were the scorers. Mamadou Diakhon blasted home a fourth goal in the 75th for Brugge, which reached the Round of 16 last season.

Monaco had an early penalty saved and scored a stoppage-time consolation goal through Ansu Fati.

Kasper Hjulmand returned to Denmark for his first Champions League match in charge of Bayer Leverkusen — and a first in over a decade — and saw his new team escape with a 2-2 draw at FC Copenhagen thanks to a stoppage-time own-goal.

Pantelis Hatzidiakos deflected the ball into his own net from substitute Claudio Echeverri's cross to gift Leverkusen a second equalizer, with the first coming from Álex Grimaldo's stunning free kick in the 82nd.

Jordan Larsson — the son of former Barcelona and Sweden striker Henrik Larsson — and loan signing Robert scored for Copenhagen.

Hjulmand, the former Denmark coach, replaced Erik ten Hag at Leverkusen just three games into the season. Ten Hag only took over from Xabi Alonso in the summer.

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer