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Diego Simeone said the new Champions League format meant his Atlético Madrid team “absolutely had to win” their opening game, after José María Giménez‘s 90th minute header gave them a dramatic 2-1 victory over RB Leipzig.

Benjamin Sesko put Leipzig ahead on the counterattack in the 4th minute at the Metropolitano on Thursday, before the game’s MVP Antoine Griezmann levelled after half an hour, and later set up Giménez for his winner.

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Atlético will travel to Benfica in their next Champions League game, before facing Lille, Paris Saint-Germain, Sparta Prague, Slovan Bratislava, Bayer Leverkusen and Salzburg in the rest of the new league phase.

“This format means we absolutely had to win,” Simeone told Movistar. “A draw today wouldn’t do much for us. The format means you have to try to win, and if you can’t, you have to get something.

“Those [teams] who win enough games will be in the top eight, and won’t have to play two extra matches.”

The top eight sides in the league phase will qualify automatically for the Champions League round of 16, while the teams finishing between 9th and 24th will compete in two-legged playoffs to progress.

Simeone’s Atlético invested heavily in this summer’s transfer market, signing Julián Álvarez, Conor Gallagher, Robin Le Normand and Alexander Sorloth, as they look to compete in the Champions League, where they were eliminated in last season’s quarterfinals.

“From 65 to around 80 minutes, it looked like the game might get away from us,” Simeone said. “And then Giménez scored. The performance was good, and if we’d drawn I would have said the same. We had different players trying things, they interpreted the game well, and we got an important, necessary win.”

“We tried until the last minute,” Griezmann said. “We know we have the players to score goals. We’re on the right track, we’ll keep going but it’s just the start.

“MVP? My son will be happy, he loves playing with these trophies, he uses them as goalposts!”

Atlético travel to Rayo Vallecano in LaLiga on Sunday, before visiting Celta Vigo next week, and then hosting Real Madrid in the derby on Sept. 29.

Former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry is close to a deal to buy a controlling stake in the National Women’s Soccer League’s North Carolina Courage, a source confirmed to ESPN.

Sportico reported that the deal would value the Courage at $108 million.

If the transaction goes through, Lasry would become the principal owner of the Courage, taking over the role from Steve Malik, who bought the franchise rights from the Western New York Flash in January 2017 and relocated the team to Cary, North Carolina.

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Lasry is the chairman of Avenue Capital Group, whose athlete team of advisors includes former NWSL MVP, United States international and World Cup winner Lauren Holiday. Lasry, who sold his stake in the Bucks last year, has been vocal about his desire to invest in women’s sports and previously pursued investing in Angel City FC.

Courage owner Malik and a team spokesperson, could not be reached for comment.

North Carolina is the only franchise in the 14-team NWSL that has not introduced new controlling ownership or a new team governor in the past four years. The league has grown from 10 teams in 2021 and is expected to add two more in 2026.

NWSL team valuations have soared from $3.5 million in early 2020 (Seattle Reign FC) to multiple records this year. The San Diego Wave are in the middle of a two-part sale process valued between $113 million and $120 million, which was a new record in the spring.

Marc Lasry is close to taking control of the National Women’s Soccer League’s North Carolina Courage. Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Angel City FC set a record in a deal that closed earlier this month. Willow Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and Disney CEO Bob Iger bought the LA-based club for a valuation of $250 million. (The Walt Disney Company is the majority owner of ESPN.)

The Courage have been highly successful on the field, winning NWSL Championships in 2018 and 2019, the NWSL Shield in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and the NWSL Challenge Cup in 2022 and 2023. The Western New York Flash also won the 2016 NWSL Championship a few months before the franchise’s relocation.

Off the field, however, the Courage have struggled in Cary, which is a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Courage averaged about 5,400 fans in 2023, which ranked second to last in the NWSL. The team plays at WakeMed Soccer Park, a 10,000-seat venue that opened in 2002 and is publicly owned.

Malik had led efforts to get a soccer stadium built in the southern part of downtown Raleigh, but those plans have been on pause for years.

Sports development in Raleigh has continued, however, with the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes announcing last week a $1 billion mixed-use development around their current arena, which sits next to NC State’s football stadium. The arena is only three miles from WakeMed Soccer Park.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick felt Eric García‘s early red card was the turning point in Thursday’s 2-1 defeat to Monaco and insisted his side are strong enough to progress in the new-look Champions League.

García was dismissed after just 10 minutes for a last-man challenge before goals from Maghnes Akliouche and George Ilenikhena, either side of Lamine Yamal‘s equaliser, earned the Ligue 1 side three points at the Stade Louis II stadium.

The loss was Barça’s first defeat under Flick following an impressive start to the campaign which has so far yielded five successive wins in LaLiga.

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“I think we defended with a lot of passion,” the German coach said in a news conference after the game. “The goal from Lamine brought us back to 1-1. We had chances. At the end, we tried to stay in the game with a compact defence, close together, but you can also see that [Monaco] bring a lot of players in with huge speed. It was not easy to defend.

“After the red card, the game changed totally. The positive things are we tried to defend as a team and attack as a team. We have chances, but they deserve the 2-1 so we have to accept that.

“I am not worried. We have to analyse this, but as I say to the team now, ‘Heads up,’ because they were a little disappointed in the dressing room.”

Barça host Young Boys in their next Champions League game on Oct. 1 and still have to play Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Benfica and Atalanta, among others, in the competition.

The new format will see the top eight teams in the league phase progress directly to the round-of-16, with the sides finishing between ninth and 24th entering a knockout round and 12 teams being eliminated.

Despite opening with a defeat to Monaco, Flick has no doubts that Barça will qualify for the next phase.

“No,” he responded when asked if Thursday’s loss was further proof that Barça have a problem with the Champions League having failed to reach the knockout rounds in two of the last three years.

Barcelona’s Eric Garcia was sent off in the 10th minute of his team’s loss to Monaco. Getty Images

“You see the situation today. After 10 minutes, the red card. It changed totally our idea, our match plan. We have to accept this. It happens.

“I think we are strong enough to play a good Champions League. We have seven matches and I think we will win many matches and at the end we reach our goals.”

The game changed when García hauled down Takumi Minamino after the former Liverpool forward intercepted a short pass from Barça goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen in the early stages of the match. Ter Stegen said the mistake was a misunderstanding between the two and claimed Barça deserved a point.

“Yes, for sure [the red card conditioned the game],” he told reporters. “There was a misunderstanding in that situation. I feel bad for Eric because it has cost him. Then we have to play for 80 minutes a player down.

“It should not have happened, but it does happen from time to time in football. It hurts because even with 10 men we showed up.

“The game was not under control, but we showed up. At the end of the day, we lost by one goal, the second one, which came from nowhere and wasn’t really deserved in that moment.”

Among the positives in defeat for Barça was the return of Ansu Fati, who returned from injury to make his first appearance of the season.

“I saw him in the last weeks of training and when we start the preseason, I saw him really different,” Flick said.

“I spent some time at Brighton last season and I saw him in training and a match and here he is totally different. He’s focused, he brings his quality on the pitch. He needs some time now, but he will get this.”

Fati remains the youngest scorer in the Champions League at 17 years and 40 days old when he netted against Inter Milan in 2019, but he watched from the bench as teammate Yamal became the second youngest to score in the competition at 17 years and 68 days old.

Yamal now has four goals and four assists in six games in all competitions this season, which has seen opposing teams start to double up on him or treat him differently. As a result, Flick removed him early in Monaco to save him for Sunday’s trip to Villarreal in LaLiga.

“Lamine today he tried a lot,” Flick explained. “It was a tough match for him, they [were] attacking him really hard. This is the way. He has to adapt to this. For Pau [Cubarsí] and him, [taking them off] was also to think about Sunday.”