Arsene Wenger was forced into making an early change in the second half of Wednesday’s Champions League Round of 16 bout, introducing Gabriel Paulista from the bench in place of captain Laurent Koscielny.

The oft-reliable Arsenal defender appeared to be nursing a hamstring issue.

Moments after Koscielny had to depart the encounter, Bayern Munich took full advantage of the visitor’s afflicted backline. First, Robert Lewandowski headed in a Philipp Lahm cross, and then Thiago Alcantara finished off a sweet team move moments later.

In under 180 seconds, 1-1 had turned to 3-1 to Bayern; and Thiago then made it four on 63 minutes.

Koscielny hasn’t sat out any Arsenal matches through injury so far this term, and if he’s sidelined he’ll likely be replaced by the erratic Gabriel, largely untested Rob Holding, or an auxiliary option from elsewhere on the pitch.

Napoli players received a special pre-match message from one of football’s all-time greatest players as Diego Maradona did his best to fire the Italian side up ahead of Wednesday’s Round of 16 encounter with Real Madrid.

The Argentine legend, who spent seven years in Naples during his illustrious career, was pictured inside the Napoli dressing room as players huddled around him during an apparent pep talk minutes before kickoff at the Santiago Bernabeu.

It seemed to work wonders early on as Lorenzo Insigne gave the visitors a surprising 1-0 lead inside 10 minutes after his long-range effort beat Real net-minder Keylor Navas.

The advantage didn’t last long as Karim Benzema and Toni Kroos eventually fired Real into the lead.

Ten minutes of attacking football from Bayern Munich hammered a trio of nails into Arsenal’s Champions League coffin Wednesday.

After Bayern and Arsenal entered the interval all square in the first leg of their tie in the Champions League’s Round of 16, the German club undid all of the Gunners’ early work in only ten minutes. First came a wonderful counter-attack that ended with Robert Lewandowski heading Carlo Ancelotti’s side into the lead in the 53rd minute.