Napoli 4-3 Bodø/Glimt: Scott McTominay scores twice in a seven-goal Champions League win

Napoli finally opened their Champions League account with a 4-3 win over Bodø/Glimt at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, in a seven-goal match that swung repeatedly before Massimiliano Allegri's side held on through an own goal and a stoppage-time header to collect their first points of the league phase.

Matteo Politano volleyed Napoli in front inside the first minute, created by Leonardo Spinazzola, before Jens Petter Hauge levelled for Bodø/Glimt in the 27th minute, set up by Sondre Brunstad Fet. Scott McTominay restored Napoli's lead just before half-time, in the 41st minute, assisted by Kevin De Bruyne, only for Andreas Helmersen to make it 2-2 in the 62nd minute, Brunstad Fet turning provider for the second time. McTominay's second goal, a header created by Politano in the 75th minute, looked to have settled it at 3-2, but Odin Bjørtuft turned the ball into his own net in the 88th minute to hand Napoli what finished as a fourth goal on the board, and Brunstad Fet completed his own involvement in all three Bodø/Glimt goals by scoring one himself with a stoppage-time header in the 90th+4 minute to make the final score 4-3.

A result Allegri's side badly needed

Napoli had taken nothing from their opening two Champions League matches, a 0-1 home defeat to Arsenal on matchday 1 followed by a 1-3 away loss at Villarreal on matchday 2, leaving them without a point and in the bottom five of the 36-club table heading into this game. That run had come inside a wider stretch of Serie A form that swung from a promising 2-0 win at Genoa to open Allegri's reign to a 0-1 defeat at Venezia in their most recent league outing, with a come-from-ahead loss at Inter and a draw at Fiorentina mixed in between. Three bookings for Napoli players here — Frank Anguissa, Noa Lang and Giovanni Di Lorenzo all cautioned — hint at a side still defending under some strain even in a winning performance.

McTominay's double continues a strong individual run

Both of McTominay's goals came from Napoli teammates rather than from nothing — De Bruyne's assist for the first, Politano's header for the second — and the pairing of the two summer and 2025 arrivals combining for a Champions League brace is exactly the kind of individual output Napoli have been missing while the team result slipped away in Europe. McTominay's finish for the third goal, a header arriving at the back post, mirrored the way Bodø/Glimt's own equalisers kept arriving: a mobile front two or combination finding space that a back line under pressure could not quite close down in time.

Bodø/Glimt's away goals outweigh the result

For Bodø/Glimt, this was a second defeat in three Champions League matches, but one that arrived with far more attacking signs of life than their opening 0-5 loss away at Bayern Munich on matchday 1. Sondre Brunstad Fet was involved in all three of their goals here — two assists and a goal of his own — and the Norwegian champions scored three times away at a side chasing its first points, a far cry from the matchday-2 display in which they beat Borussia Dortmund 1-0 at home but had managed only a single goal themselves. Three goals on the road, even in defeat, is a number worth banking for a side still finding its level in its first-ever Champions League league phase.

Match facts

• 1' — Matteo Politano (Napoli), assist Leonardo Spinazzola, volley
• 27' — Jens Petter Hauge (Bodø/Glimt), assist Sondre Brunstad Fet
• 41' — Scott McTominay (Napoli), assist Kevin De Bruyne
• 62' — Andreas Helmersen (Bodø/Glimt), assist Sondre Brunstad Fet
• 75' — Scott McTominay (Napoli), assist Matteo Politano, header
• 88' — Odin Bjørtuft, own goal (credited to Napoli)
• 90'+4' — Sondre Brunstad Fet (Bodø/Glimt), header
• Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Naples — Champions League league phase, matchday 3, Tuesday 20 October 2026

What's next

Napoli's first win of the league phase moves them up from the bottom five of the 36-club Champions League table, though they remain 9th in Serie A on 10 points from seven games and still searching for the balance between attack and defence that has defined Allegri's start. Bodø/Glimt, with a win and two defeats from their first three matches and three goals conceded on the road here, take some attacking encouragement into a league phase that still has five matchdays left to decide whether their history-making European run extends into the knockout play-offs.