England's misery continued in this season's Champions League as Chelsea and Arsenal suffered losses, but Barcelona showed they have fight and quality in them even without Lionel Messi, while Bayern Munich put on an attacking masterclass, yet again.
BATE Borisov stole the headlines with an impressive win over Roma, but it was Arsenal who showed one more time there is no better team in the world, let alone Europe, in sticking that knife into themselves.
Jose Mourinho did not have the return he would have liked to Chelsea as FC Porto picked up a 2-1 victory.
Mourinho's return, though, might have begun swimmingly well had it not been for the man who did not see eye to eye during the Portuguese's reign at Real Madrid, with Iker Casillas, who broke the appearance record in the Champions League with this game, making a couple of splendid saves to deny former Barcelona players Cesc Fabregas and Pedro early on.
With the match looking like it needed a goal, Yacine Brahimi provided the spark, easing past Branislav Ivanovic before firing in a shot, which Asmir Begovic could only parry. The rebound fell for Andre Andre who fired his shot past the Chelsea goalkeeper for the opening goal of the Group G game.
However, Chelsea would go level on the stroke of halftime, with Willian striking a perfect freekick from just outside the penalty box.
Porto, however, took the lead for good seven minutes into the second half, with Maicon striking the winner.
At the Camp Nou, it looked like we might have a bit of a shock on our hands as Bayer Leverkusen, with that pressing game working for them, took a halftime lead via a header from Kyriakos Papadopoulos.
However, Barcelona showed just why they are the champions, scoring two goals in two minutes, in the 80th and 82nd, courtesy Sergio Roberto and the irrepressible Luis Suarez to take home all three points, when, for the longest time, even one looked unlikely.
The biggest shock of the day came in the other Group E match, as BATE Borisov beat Roma, the team that had held Barcelona 1-1 pretty comfortably on matchday one, 3-2. Igor Stasevich opened the scoring in the eighth minute for the team from Belarus, before a double from Filip Mladenovic sealed the huge result, even if Roma came back with two goals in the second half from Gervinho and Vasilis Torosidis.
At the Emirates, it was the same-old Arsenal, giving away a couple of self-inflicted goals to find themselves in an awful mire.
After an even first half-an-hour of the game, Olympiakos took the lead via a corner. It was one of those corners which is flighted to the man standing on the edge of the box, with that man being Felipe Pardo, who saw his not-that-well-taken shot take a wicked deflection off an Arsenal player and creep into the back of the net.
Arsenal, though, replied back immediately, two minutes after the opening goal to be exact, as Theo Walcott finished via a little help from the goalkeeper Roberto, after a nice through ball from Alexis Sanchez.
But that knife, though, was still waiting to be plunged right back in, with David Ospina making a complete hash of an in-swinging corner. The ball might have gone over the line, might have not, with the referee near the touchline giving it to Olympiakos.
Arsenal piled on the pressure in the second half, and after a couple of near-scares, the Olympiakos dam broke when Walcott dinked a nice cross for Sanchez to head home. A minute later, though, Olympiakos were back into the lead as some comical defending from Arsenal allowed Pardo to pick out Alfred Finnbogason, who provided a deft finish into the far corner.
In the other Group F match, Bayern Munich had a bit of fun at the Allianz Arena, with Robert Lewandowski grabbing a hat-trick – making it ten goals in three matches – while Douglas Costa and Mario Gotze also go in on the scoresheet to stroll past Dinamo Zagreb, who were brought crashing back to earth by the 2013 champions.
Results: Group E: Barcelona 2-1 Bayer Leverkusen; BATE Borisov 3-2 Roma.
Group F: Arsenal 2-3 Olympiakos; Bayern Munich 5-0 Dinamo Zagreb.
Group G: Maccabi Tel Aviv 0-2 Dynamo Kyiv; FC Porto 2-1 Chelsea.
Group H: Lyon 0-1 Valencia; Zenit St. Petersburg 2-1 Gent.
