UEFA Champions League: Notes from matchday 3 - 10 things that caught the eye

3. You don’t mess with the Zlatan

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will be bandied about as the two best players on the planet currently, but for sheer genius, innovation, skill level and just downright audaciousness, Zlatan Ibrahimovic deserves to be up there as well.

The Zlatan of course comes with the massive-sized ego and swagger to boot along with the above mentioned qualities and it is these components that make Zlatan a must watch.

After lacing Anderlecht with 4 goals last night, including one delightful finish for his second and a thunderbolt third, Zlatan received a rousing round of applause from the Anderlecht fans who realized that they had been treated to something special.

If there were votes for magnetism and spellbinding electric moments on the football field, the Zlatan would win hands down.

4. Russia continues to be home to some of the most racist and incandescent fans

The ugly head of racism reared up yet again when Manchester City’s Yaya Toure was subjected to monkey chants by a section of the CSKA Moscow fans.

There seems to be no end to this vicious menace of racism, especially in Russia, as there have been plenty of such instances across Europe in the recent past.

Petty fines and matches behind closed doors seem to hardly be having any effect in trying to stem the rot and its about time that the authorities looked at sterner action in the form of bans and point deductions.