Inter remain overwhelming favourites to defend their title, Lazio are emerging as the surprise package of the season, and Roma and Milan are in the race for the top spots… We’ll see how things stand at the end, but there is one thing in Italian football that is beyond doubt. The best football in Italy is being played by Como. They played it last season, and they are playing it this season, too. And they’re getting better and better. Sometimes it doesn’t bring results, as it didn’t recently in Rotterdam, but more and more often it does — and increasingly, it is footballing poetry, with plenty of goals flying into the opposition’s net.1 – Il #Como, oltre ad essere la 1ª squadra italiana a segnare almeno 7 gol in trasferta in Coppa dei Campioni/UEFA #ChampionsLeague, è anche in generale la 1ª italiana a realizzare 9 reti in una gara nelle principali competizioni europee. Insaziabile. #LensComo https://t.co/CUXKKqcIs0— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo) November 4, 2026 Cesc Fàbregas’s team played magical football in Lens, demolishing the French side 9–1. At the halfway point of the Champions League campaign, they are the best Italian representatives, with nine points. Three wins from four matches, all three against opponents from different leagues among Europe’s top five. After two 4–1 wins, against Leipzig and Manchester United, they destroyed Lens tonight — a team that is by no means a pushover or an easy opponent… That makes 17 goals in three matches against clubs from Germany, England and France?! Yes, behind Como’s meteoric rise from Serie B to the Champions League in just three years is the vast wealth of Indonesian billionaires, the Hartono brothers. But many clubs have money and don’t know how to spend it. At Como, they have combined financial resources with human talent. They have entrusted Cesc Fàbregas with the entire football project, and are now enjoying the beautiful fruits of his work. It is a pleasure to watch what the young coach has built with Como’s young team.Arsenal survive, Liverpool crash, while City fly – mixed fortunes for EPL giants in Champions LeagueScoring seven goals in the Champions League has generally been a rare privilege reserved for the heavyweights of the competition, such as Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern… From tonight, debutants Como are part of that company, too. And entirely deservedly so, because Fàbregas’s idea is to play dominant football, always and against everyone, whatever the outcome. It took money, time and patience; the right ingredients had to be chosen, but the final product is mouth-watering… The biggest win in Champions League history!Until now, only Real and Liverpool had won by eight goals. The Reds beat Besiktas 8–0, while Los Merengues beat Malmo by the same score. But Como scored one more. The only team to have scored nine goals before was Bayern, against Dinamo Zagreb, but they conceded two themselves. That makes this a Champions League record. The football almanacs will remember the names of hat-trick scorer Tasos Douvikas; Como’s gem and Fàbregas’s best student, Nico Paz; footballing jewels Martin Baturina and Mattia Liberali, who will replace the Argentine when he leaves for Real; and quiet hero Lucas da Cunha, who has been there since their days in the second division…##EDITORS_CHOICE##Everyone at Como knows how to play football. The very kind of football Fàbregas has been developing and insisting on since taking charge of Como’s youth team three and a half years ago, and the first team a year later. In many ways, the natural successor to Pep Guardiola is the best thing to have happened to Italy’s stagnant and rotten football. He is a point of reference if the Italians want to make their game modern and competitive with the rest of Europe again. It can be done. You just have to work hard, persevere and see it through — and have the trust of the people who hired you. And then you get a night when all the pieces fall into place, as they did tonight, and everything runs like clockwork because everyone knows what to do and how to do it on the pitch. The patterns of play paid off. Como had scored three against Lens by half-time, six in less than an hour, and their eighth goal came in the 69th minute. They kept the same intensity from the first minute to the last. Something Italian coaches and teams haven’t done for years…Betrayal of Barca or not? Fabregas opens door to future Real Madrid moveIf they could keep Fàbregas and all these talented youngsters in the future — Ramón (21), Valle (22), Couto (24), Perone (23), Paz (22), Liberali (19), Baturina (23)… — whom they mostly brought in from big clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Milan and Borussia Dortmund, where they could not get a chance, it would be a spectacular football story. But we know that won’t happen, and that next June Fàbregas and many of these players will find it hard to resist offers from richer, stronger clubs.This night has gone down in history, and these Cesc’s boys will be remembered as a special generation. It is symbolic that the record-breaking ninth goal was scored at the end by 18-year-old debutant Mateo Papaccoli. Born in Brazil, he moved to his Italy as a child and joined Como’s youth ranks in 2022 — the same year Cesc Fàbregas was bringing his playing career in Serie B to an end. That boy is one of the best witnesses to everything that has been built on the shores of the glamorous lake. And to the fact that Italy has talent that the other, cowardly domestic coaches overlook. Yes, Fàbregas has been able to buy players from all over, but Papaccoli is a message that something will remain after Cesc that belongs to him and Como alone. That is why there is something fairy-tale-like about Papaccoli’s debut and goal.##NAJAVA_MECA_10088141##