LONDON: The goal machines of Bayern Munich, Shakhtar Donetsk and Chelsea cranked into top gear on Tuesday as the Champions League captivated its continental audience with a record 40 goals in one eight-game night.

Bayern produced a stunning display to demolish AS Roma 7-1 for their biggest victory on the road and Luiz Adriano scored five as Shakhtar put seven goals past BATE Borisov.

Chelsea weren’t far behind in a 6-0 win over Maribor at Stamford Bridge for their biggest win in the competition on an evening to forget for defenders and goalkeepers alike.

Magnificent seven for Bayern, Shakhtar; Chelsea hit six

Shakhtar became the first team to score six times in the first half of a Champions League match, and their victory was the joint-best for an away side.

Brazilian striker Adriano became the first player to score four before half-time — and at 17 minutes he now holds the competition record for the quickest four-goal tally.

He added another late on in Belarus to join Lionel Messi as the only players to have netted five times in a Champions League outing.

Messi scored once in Barcelona’s 3-1 victory over Ajax to pull level with Cristiano Ronaldo on 69 Champions League goals, two behind all-time leading scorer Raul Gonzalez.

In another high-scoring contest, Schalke 04 squandered a two-goal lead before scoring a controversial penalty in stoppage time to edge 10-man Sporting Lisbon 4-3 but Manchester City remained without a victory in three matches after wasting a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 at CSKA Moscow.

Away from the big-scoring games, Paris St Germain edged APOEL 1-0 in Cyprus and FC Porto beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1 but it was Bayern who stole the show.

Five-time champions Bayern, who won the title in 2013, underlined their status as one of the favourites this season with an overwhelming performance in Rome.

An Arjen Robben brace, Mario Goetze, Robert Lewandowski and a Thomas Mueller penalty made it 5-0 at the break in the Group ‘E’ game.

Gervinho got one back for Roma in the second-half before substitutes Franck Ribery and Xherdan Shaqiri added further goals in a result which matched Roma’s heaviest defeat in the competition, a 7-1 loss at Manchester United in the 2007 quarter-finals.

“This is a one-off result, it doesn’t reflect the true difference between the sides,” Bayern coach Pep Guardiola said.

But Bayern are starting to look like the Barcelona squad that Guardiola coached to two Champions League titles. The Spaniard took over Bayern last season and saw his club lose 5-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid in the semi-finals.

“Last season we had the legs but not the mindset,” Guardiola said. “We needed to decide things a split-second quicker and now we’re doing that.”

City’s stumbling start in Group ‘E’ continued despite goals from Sergio Aguero and James Milner giving the English champions a comfortable two-goal lead by half-time in a game played behind closed doors in sub-zero temperatures at Arena Khimki.

CSKA substitute Seydou Doumbia pulled one back in the 65th minute off a cross from Ahmed Musa and Bibras Natcho levelled in the 86th from the penalty spot after Doumbia was fouled by Aleksandar Kolarov to earn the Russians a point, and leave City third in their section.

“We’ve lost two very important points but we have nine points more to play for and I believe we still have enough chances to reach the knockout stage,” said bullish City manager Manuel Pellegrini.

Eden Hazard netted twice and Didier Drogba scored his first goal since returning to Chelsea in the victory over Maribor in Group ‘G’.

Drogba’s two-month search for a goal ended in the first-half shortly after replacing Loic Remy, who sustained a groin injury while netting Chelsea’s opener in the 13th minute, with John Terry putting Chelsea three up at the break.

Hazard took centre stage in the second-half, forcing Mitja Viler into scoring an own goal before netting a penalty and getting his second of the night at the death, while Agim Ibraimi missed a penalty for the visitors.

“We played seriously,” said Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho. “We faced the game in the right way and even at half-time at 3-0 the boys kept playing at a good speed and with good quality.”

Yet that match was not the most prolific in the group, as Schalke stayed within two points of Chelsea by beating Sporting — who played for almost an hour with just 10 men — in Gelsenkirchen.

Chinedu Obasi, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Benedikt Hoewedes scored to have Schalke in control after Nani had put Sporting ahead, but an Adrien Silva brace made it 3-3 and it looked as if the Portuguese side would return home with a draw.

Silva, though, was penalised for a handball — although television replays clearly showed the ball had bounced off his chest — and substitute Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting converted a stoppage-time penalty to hand new Schalke coach Roberto di Matteo a second win from as many games.

Messi started an outstanding performance at the Nou Camp by setting up Neymar in the seventh minute before the Argentine scored in the 24th.

Anwar El Ghazi pulled one back but Sandro Ramirez netted for the Catalans as Barca dismissed Ajax to stay a point behind PSG in Group ‘F’.

“I am pleased with our game, in the first-half we were by far the better side. We created a lot of chances and could have scored two more goals,” Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said. “We could have pressed more in the second-half. You have to finish out the match.”

Without star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, PSG needed a goal from Edinson Cavani three minutes from time to beat APOEL.

“I believe that we didn’t play a great game. Honestly, it’s not one that we’ll remember. But what we’ll keep is the three points,” PSG coach Laurent Blanc said.

Shakhtar are second in Group ‘H’ behind Porto, who beat struggling Bilbao with Ricardo Quaresma netting the winner after Guillermo Fernandez had cancelled out Hector Herrera’s opener for the Portuguese hosts.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2014