Como put nine goals past Lens to match Champions League record

Nico Paz has scored three goals and assisted five in this season's Champions League Como produced a stunning away performance to put nine goals past a hapless Lens side and match the record for most scored by a team in a Champions League game. The Italian side equalled Bayern Munich's tally against Dinamo Zagreb in 2024 as Cesc Fabregas' team continued a remarkable debut European campaign in France.

After beating RB Leipzig and Manchester United, and falling to a narrow Feyenoord defeat, Como's most staggering result yet lifted them to fourth in the league phase table. "What they are doing is so impressive, considering this is their first time in Europe," former Manchester City Nedum Onuoha told BBC Sport.

"Two seasons later and probably, along with PSG and Barcelona, they are the three most exciting teams in the Champions League." While the Italians have a share of the record for most goals in the Champions League era, Feyenoord hold the European Cup mark, having beaten Icelandic side KR 12-2 in September 1969. Como did, though, enjoy the biggest away win in Champions League history.

They are also only the third side since the competition's inception to win by an eight-goal margin, matching Liverpool and Real Madrid, who claimed 8-0 home victories over Besiktas and Malmo, respectively. Como are also the first team to score nine goals in an away European Cup match since Feyenoord won 9-0 at Olympiakos Nicosia in September 1971.

No side has ever scored more than their 19 in their first four games in European competition - only Queen's Park Rangers, in the 1976-77 UEFA Cup, can match that impressive haul. Como's rise has been remarkable, with the club playing in Serie D, the fourth tier of Italian football, as recently as 2018-19.

A takeover from London-based media company Sent Entertainment, owned by Indonesian billionaires Robert Budi Hartono and Michael Bambang Hartono dramatically changed the direction of the club. When they concluded a deal in 2019, the Hartono brothers were planning a TV project, with the idea of screening matches involving young Indonesian players back home.

"Somehow the team got promoted, we had to go professional, and the plan had to be scrapped," chief executive Mirwan Suwarso told Piers Morgan's Football Uncensored Podcast in October. Even after the plan changed, this level of progression - and so quickly - has still come as a surprise.

"Yes, they have got rich owners but that alone doesn't buy you guaranteed success," ex-Liverpool full-back Stephen Warnock told BBC Sport. "You have got to buy the right players to fit the right system and Fabregas has gone for young players as well, who are hungry but also can keep progressing and keep improving, like he is as a manager.

So the team's development is almost mirroring his development, in the way that they are going to progress together."