UEFA Champions League Playoffs Leg 1 Reports: Aytekin sends man off in Manchester

Astana 1-0 APOEL                                   Referee: Viktor Kassai (Hungary)
Kassai had a somewhat quiet night, though there was one APOEL penalty shout in the second half just before Astana scored the only goal of the match and I agree with the claims. The Astana defender  clearly trips up the APOEL attacker. Kassai was too far out to get a good look and should try to get in better position to see plays like that in the future.

Sporting Lisbon 2-1 CSKA Moscow        Referee: Cüneyt Çakir (Turkey)
Cakir, the finals referee in last year's tournament, had one big penalty decision to make in an otherwise quiet match.
26th Minute: Zoran Tošić of CSKA Moscow and Lisbon Defender Jefferson go for a 50-50 ball in the Lisbon box. Tošić wins the ball and in doing so gets tripped up by Jefferson. Çakir points to the spot and I agree. There was clear contact that was certainly enough to bring Tošić down and therefor deserving of a penalty call. Good decision by Çakir.

BATE Borisov 1-0 Partizan                      Referee: Craig Thomson (Scotland)
Thomson showed one red card and it certainly was a very difficult decision.
45+1st Minute: Marko Jevtović of Partizan is already booked when he makes a foolish challenge on Nemanja Milunović of BATE, tripping up the Serbian midfielder at about midfield. It's a very borderline call that some referees could have chosen to issue a final warning on but Thomson decides to go for a second yellow, a call that is very acceptable in this case. Good work by Thomson to have the guts make a big call in a big moment.

Manchester United 3-1 Club Brugge        Referee: Deniz Aytekin (Germany)
Aytekin showed 1 red in this match after his assistant saw a rough challenge from Brandon Mechele.
79th Minute: Brandon Mechele of Club Brugge, already booked, slides hard from behind a United player right in front of AR Markus Häcker, who signals for a foul and likely instructs Aytekin to show a second yellow. Good teamwork to get the call right.

Aytekin checks on an injured player during the match

Lazio 1-0 Bayer Leverkusen                     Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)
Ericsson struggled with consistency on the night and in the future he should try to have more set boundaries for whether a foul deserves a yellow or not. No plays to go in depth on here.

Celtic 3-2 Malmö FF                                 Referee: Felix Brych (Germany)
It was an excellent performance from Brych in this match with nothing to go in depth on. If Brych keeps this up he will be a strong candidate for the UCL final (assuming no German teams are playing in it).

Skënderbeu 1-2 Dinamo Zagreb               Referee: Sergei Karasev (Russia)
Karasev was decent on the night but I saw two areas for improvement. I thought that Karasev could've shown more yellow cards in this match as his lack of discipline early caused him to have trouble keeping control in the match. I also think that the crew's teamwork was poor, with a couple of mistakes being made due to poor communication between the officials.

FC Basel 2-2 Maccabi Tel-Aviv               Referee: William Collum (Scotland)
Coming off of a shaky Super Cup performance, Collum was excellent in this match, correctly calling one penalty.
38th Minute: Matias Delgado of FC Basel is tripped up by Tel Aviv's Tal Ben Haim inside the Tel Aviv box. Easy penalty call for Collum (the challenge took Delgado's shoe off) and the Scottish referee was correct in pointing to the spot.

Rapid Vienna 0-1 Shakhtar Donetsk       Referee: Björn Kuipers (Netherlands)
It was an excellent performance for Kuipers in his first Champions League match since a questionable performance in PSG-Chelsea. Good work by the Dutch referee as he looks to get his international reputation back on track.

Valencia CF 3-1 Monaco                        Referee: Mark Clattenburg (England)
Clattenburg put together another decent Champions League match as he continues to battle Martin Atkinson for the right to be England's Euro 2016 referee. Nothing to go in depth on here.