Como announces itself in Europe with 4–1 win over Leipzig

On a night when nerves were supposed to jangle and history was meant to feel heavy, Como 1907 walked into the UEFA Champions League as if they’d been here for years.

They left with a 4–1 win over RB Leipzig, a statement performance, and a new European hero in Martin Baturina.

Baturina writes Como’s first European line

The script could hardly have been cleaner. Fifteen minutes into their first-ever Champions League match, Como’s No. 10 found the space he craves and the moment he wanted.

Baturina struck the opener, the club’s first goal in European competition, and with it loosened every shoulder in a blue shirt. The finish carried composure; the celebration carried history.

From there, he ran the game.

Dropping between the lines, drifting wide, always one step ahead of Leipzig’s midfield, the 23-year-old Croatian dictated the tempo with the kind of poise that has long drawn comparisons to Luka Modric. His movement created passing angles, his awareness opened corridors where none seemed to exist.

UEFA’s Technical Observer Group took note, naming him Player of the Match. Nobody in the stadium could argue.

Como seize control

The first goal settled Como. The second stunned Leipzig.

Baturina, now pulling strings with growing authority, turned provider as Tasos Douvikas doubled the lead. A smart assist, a sharp finish, and suddenly Cesc Fabregas’s side were two goals clear, playing with the swagger of a team that believed this stage belonged to them.

Leipzig, accustomed to the rhythm of Champions League nights, found themselves second to loose balls and chasing shadows in midfield. Como’s intensity, the very trait Baturina later highlighted, suffocated the Bundesliga side’s attempts to build any momentum.

After the break, the pressure told again. Assane Diao made it 3–0, a scoreline that reflected not just clinical finishing but control, structure, and a clear game plan executed with conviction.

Leipzig hit back, Como answer harder

Leipzig finally found a response through Eredin Maksimovic, a goal that briefly threatened to tilt the mood. It didn’t.

Como absorbed the setback, then finished with a flourish.

As the clock ticked into the 90th minute, Nico Paz slipped a pass into Maximo Perrone, who calmly converted to restore the three-goal cushion and complete a resounding 4–1 victory. It was the kind of late strike that doesn’t just pad the scoreline; it underlines superiority.

On debut, against seasoned European opposition, Como had not merely survived. They had dominated.

Calm voice at the centre of the storm

For all the emotion swirling around the club’s first Champions League night, Baturina cut a notably calm figure afterward.

He spoke of the “amazing feeling” of scoring his first goal in the competition and of the pride he felt for himself and his teammates, but he kept circling back to the collective: the intensity, the preparation, the refusal to let the occasion or the atmosphere overwhelm them.

They had treated it, he insisted, like any other game.

Pressed on the historic nature of his opener in a separate interview, he acknowledged the weight of the moment yet shifted quickly to the bigger picture. Como’s ambitions, he stressed, rest on pragmatism: adapting to different styles, respecting the variety of opponents in the Champions League, and moving carefully but confidently toward the knockout rounds.

Game by game. Win as many as possible. Find a way out of the group.

Simple words, but from a player who had just bent the evening to his will, they sounded like a plan rather than a cliché.

From Europe back to Serie A

The city of Como will savour this. A first Champions League match, a first Champions League win, and a performance that felt like an announcement to the continent.

The celebrations, as Baturina admitted, will be deserved. Yet the schedule offers no time to linger.

Fabregas’s side now turn back to Serie A, where Parma await at the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia on Monday. The challenge shifts, but the demand remains the same: carry this level, this intensity, into domestic life.

If Como can bottle even a fraction of what they produced against Leipzig, this debut in Europe may prove to be less a one-off spectacle and more the opening chapter of something far more enduring.