The future stars breathing life into Champions League group of death

It had been 20 years since Borussia Dortmund won a Uefa Champions League fixture in Italy. The visits have been frequent enough, the outcomes always frustrating. Just when they really needed a victory, along comes a fearless winger not even born the last time Dortmund returned home triumphant from the land of stubborn defending.

Jamie Bynoe-Gittens is the latest precocious Englishman to accelerate his development at Dortmund – Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham being his pathfinders – and on Tuesday he was making his first start in Europe’s leading club competition.

San Siro is hardly the gentlest venue for such a milestone, yet within nine minutes of kick off against AC Milan, he was duelling fearlessly. A burst of pace and a featherlight prod of the ball past his marker Davide Calabria put the Milan captain into a panic, Bynoe-Gittens fouled and a penalty awarded. Marco Reus converted.

This being the utterly gripping Group F of this season’s Champions League, there was still drama to play out before the youngster completed his fairy-tale. Milan equalised before half-time, and the hierarchy of the group kept shifting. Newcastle United, who started the night bottom but still with the possibility of rising two places, were leading 1-0 in a raucous Parc des Princes against Paris Saint-Germain.

Through its five matchdays so far, Group F has been everything it was billed as: a tight matrix of former European champions – Milan and Dortmund – with superwealthy risers in Qatar-funded PSG and Newcastle, back in Uefa’s elite tournament for the first time in two decades less than two years after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund took a majority stake in the club.

There has been suspense – nowhere more than in Paris late on