Four Names, One Historic Night: Como Did Not Need a Single Star to Beat Leipzig

Minute 38. I was sitting in row eleven of the Sinigaglia stand, just above the left touchline. Beside me was an old man in a green wool sweater, holding a team sheet gone soft from folding. When Martin Baturina received the ball in the space between Leipzig's midfield and defensive lines, the old man did not stand up. He said one sentence: "This kid sees what that defence cannot." Three seconds later the ball was in the net. The stand broke into noise. That was the opening goal of the first Champions League match in the history of Como 2026. It finished 4-1. The Stadio Sinigaglia had just been upgraded to meet UEFA infrastructure standards. For a club with modest revenues, that is no small outlay, and it says at least one thing: the board chose to comply with the rules rather than find a way around them. Before kick-off I stood in the technical area watching staff re-check the floodlights and re-align the barriers. Nothing glamorous. Only preparation. On the football side, Leipzig arrived as the far more seasoned European side. Como were the opposite: many of their starters were facing a heavyweight continental opponent for the first time. Convention says that is a recipe for passivity. Newcomers usually sit deep, cede the ball and wait for mistakes. That did not happen. Three goals in the first half, a 3-1 lead at the break. Four goals in the match from four different names: Baturina, Douvikas, Diao and Perrone. This is the point I want to dwell on longest, because there is real tactical content behind it. A team with a single spearhead gets figured out within a few rounds. Leipzig could have locked down one striker. But when the goals arrive from four different channels — a creative midfielder, a centre-forward, a wide runner and a substitute off the bench — the opposing defence has to split its attention across four problems at once. That is a decentralised attacking model, and it is healthier than a model that depends on one individual. Perrone's goal deserves its own mention. A substitute scoring in the biggest match in the club's history is a signal about bench quality, and about a coaching staff willing to rotate. For a side playing Serie A and the Champions League in parallel, the ability to refresh the line-up decides whether a season lives or dies. Baturina's role also needs reading properly. He scored the opener, but that was not the most important part. He operated in the space between the lines, exactly where German sides are usually disciplined about closing the door. Baturina found that gap, and from that gap he produced a crucial assist. If I had to pick one player as the tactical pivot of the match, I would pick him. The second half was different. After going 3-1 up, Como shifted from proactive to managing the game. They dropped the block, ceded territory and accepted the price of losing control of the ball. One Como player told me afterwards: "In the second half we had to defend more, because we were 3-1 up." It is an everyday way of putting it, but it lays bare a risky tactical choice. When you sit deep against a side that can pass, you trade time for space. This time the trade paid off. It does not always. Nico Paz is another story, and it matters no less than the scoreline. He came through the Real Madrid academy pipeline, and this summer he turned down the chance to move elsewhere. His words were plain: this is where he would grow the most. Read purely as football, that is a promise of guaranteed minutes and a development pathway. It is the standard pitch ambitious mid-tier clubs make. But the structure of his contract deserves a careful look: if Paz arrived from the Real Madrid system, the deal very likely carries a buy-back option or a sell-on percentage. If he shines, a large share of the profit may not belong to Como. The rhythm of the transfer market does not live in the signature; it lives in the silence between two offers. This summer, that silence leaned towards Como. This winter, it could lean the other way. Seventy-three million pounds is the club's money, but Sancho belongs to the whispers in the stands. At Sinigaglia, I heard the whispers about Paz. They were not about transfer value. They were about the fact that he is here, this week. Outside the Sinigaglia, the story has been told differently. The media called it a magical night for Italian football, and emotionally they are not wrong. But one detail went unmentioned. That night, Inter lost, Napoli lost, Roma could only draw. Como became the only Italian side to win on the opening matchday. That contrast inflates the story far faster than a single win can carry. I have been in this job long enough to know a night like this does not create a trend. It creates expectation. And expectation costs more than victory. The whole story is being built on the smallest possible data sample: one match. There are no expected-goals figures, no pressing metrics, no widely published possession numbers. I cross-checked the line-up, the shirt numbers and the player names according to my own routine, but the quantitative side is empty. When the quantitative side is empty, the writer should lower his voice. The most expensive thing in football is the moment fans realise the club needs them. Sinigaglia had that moment. The next away fixture will show how long it lasts.