Champions League Wednesday wrap-up: Barcelona survive scare, Chelsea disappointment and Man City dominance

Matchday 4 of the 2025-26 Champions League is officially in the books with the conclusion of Wednesday's matches.

Among the storylines from Wednesday are Chelsea's inability to win in Azerbaijan, Barcelona's scare in Belgium and Manchester City earning a comfortable victory at home.

Here are some of the bigger talking points from Wednesday's Champions League matches.

Barcelona narrowly escape embarrassment

The gulf in class between Barcelona and Club Brugge is obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of the sport's history, but on Wednesday the Belgian outfit put a mighty scare into the La Liga giants as the teams drew 3-3 in Belgium.

Barcelona lined up with the likes of Lamine Yamal, Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford, yet the home side were not intimidated as they scored first in the wild draw, which saw Club Brugge take three separate leads.

The Catalans responded in kind to each goal, but with a massive shooting and possession advantage they should have done much more as they were held to a stalemate by the Belgian side.

It could have gone much worse for Barcelona, though — goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny coughed up the ball in a moment of madness near the end of the match, which allowed Romeo Vermant to easily slot home.

However, Szczęsny and Barça's blushes were spared when VAR intervened due to a foul before the goal.

Disappointment in Baku for the Blues

Chelsea were expected to easily dispatch hosts Qarabag FK on Wednesday despite the Azerbaijani side's relatively positive start to the Champions League.

The Blues are, of course, former winners of this tournament and are the current FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Conference League holders, and as such they were expected to cruise to a comfortable three points in Baku.

Instead, the home side proved a tough out for Enzo Maresca's side, and Qarabag actually held the lead for a quarter of an hour in what was ultimately a 2-2 draw between the sides.

Chelsea had their chances — the Londoners led in every attacking statistic on the evening except for the score — but could not get more than two goals past Qarabag goalkeeper Mateusz Kochalski, leaving the teams to split the points.

Man City cruise in 'Haaland Bowl'

The glamour match of the day took place in England as Manchester City welcomed Erling Haaland's old club, Borussia Dortmund, to the Etihad.

Much of the pre-match narrative surrounded Haaland, his ridiculous goal-scoring exploits this season, and how he'd fare against Dortmund, but the German side failed to provide much resistance as the Sky Blues ran out 4-1 winners on the night.

And the star of the show wasn't Haaland, as Phil Foden and Tijjani Reijnders took centre stage by combining for a couple of goals (both scored by Foden).

However, Haaland was not going to be denied his goal as the big striker pounced on a loose ball in the 29th minute and hammered into the Dortmund net before engaging in a muted celebration. As is now becoming usual for the Norwegian, the goal set a new record as Haaland became the first player in Champions League history to score in five straight matches for three different clubs.

While Haaland surely would have liked to have scored another, it's actually a good sign for Man City that the goals got spread around as they've been a bit too reliant on their star forward this season.

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