Victor Boniface scores his first-ever UEFA Champions League goal against AC Milan
BY Jonathan Ledger
Victor Boniface scored the only goal as Bayer Leverkusen defeated AC Milan 1-0 in their UEFA Champions League (UCL) group stage encounter at the Bayer Arena on Tuesday night.
The strike was the 22-year-old’s first-ever UCL goal in a competition he watched in Akure for N30 as a teenager.
He scored the winner in the second half of the pulsating encounter, as Leverkusen won two consecutive matches to maintain their perfect start to the UCL campaign.
Boniface lasted 75 minutes of the encounter, while Samuel Chukwueze, his Super Eagles of Nigeria colleague, came on as a second-half substitute for AC Milan in the 79th minute. Nathan Tella was also an 89th-minute substitute for the home side.
The match produced 33 shots, 14 of which were on target, but only Boniface’s 51st-minute effort found the right spot in the net.
Mike Maignan, Milan’s goalkeeper, parried Jeremy Frimpong’s shot into the path of Boniface, who jabbed the rebound into the goal from three yards out.
It was, however, a goal rush for Karim Adeyemi, who hit a hattrick in Borussia Dortmund’s 7-1 win over Celtic at the Signal Iduna Park in Germany.
The German player of Nigerian descent scored all three goals in the first half. He became the first German to score a UCL first-half hattrick in 13 years.
Adeyemi restored Dortmund’s lead in the 11th minute following Celtic’s equalizer before extending it in the 29th minute. The 23-year-old completed his hattrick in the 42nd minute to become the youngest German player to hit 10 UCL goals.
Elsewhere, Bukayo Saka sealed a 2-0 win for Arsenal over Paris Sait-Germain with a direct freekick that evaded everyone as the Gunners scored two first-half goals to claim their first maximum points of the UCL group stage.
Barcelona also claimed their first points with a 5-0 drubbing of Young Boys FC, while Manchester City and Inter Milan both won their respective matches 4-0.
RESULTS
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