Spanish and German soccer royalty collide in third round of Champions League games

Madrid, Oct 21 (AP) It's the best in Spain against German soccer royalty in the latest round of games in the Champions League.
     A rematch of last season's final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund is the headliner on Tuesday, before Barcelona hosts Bayern Munich on Wednesday in the next chapter of what has been a fairly one-sided rivalry in Europe's top club competition.
     All four teams have been European champions inside the last 30 years and they've made mixed starts to this season's revamped format.
     Dortmund has won both of their opening matches — 3-0 at Club Brugge and 7-1 at home to Celtic — to be the early leader and top scorer of the league stage, which sees all 36 teams play eight matches: four at home and four away.
     Just like last season when reaching the Champions League final against the odds before losing to Madrid, Dortmund has been far more impressive in Europe than in the Bundesliga. Indeed, after thrashing Celtic, Dortmund lost at Union Berlin four days later.
     Madrid, meanwhile, is coming off a surprising 1-0 loss at Lille, the defending champions' first defeat in the competition since the semifinals in the 2022-23 season.
     In fact, the second round of matches threw up a few shockers, including Bayern losing 1-0 at Aston Villa to end its unbeaten run under new coach Vincent Kompany.
     Now Bayern heads to Barcelona in search of a seventh straight win in their head-to-head, a streak that includes a humiliating 8-2 loss for Barca in the quarterfinals in 2020. Hansi Flick was in charge of Bayern that night and is now the coach of Barcelona. (AP) AH
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)