European champions Barcelona led a charge of the fancied teams over the first obstacle of the Champions League course when they nearly all scored emphatic victories on Tuesday.

Barcelona thumped Levski Sofia 5-0 - a sobering start for the first Bulgarian club to reach this stage of the competition - for their biggest ever Champions League win.

Fittingly, the reigning champions became the first team to score in this season's group phase when Andres Iniesta buried a low shot into the corner from 20 metres out in the seventh minute.

Levski found themselves 2-0 down late in the first half after winger Ludovic Giuly cut inside two defenders and then finished off in style by lifting a shot over goalkeeper Georgi Petkov.

Club captain Carles Puyol got the third early in the second half, poking home from close range after Petkov had spilled a Ronaldinho free kick and Samuel Eto'o made it 4-0 with a stunning solo effort nine minutes later.

World footballer of the year Ronaldinho then added the icing on the cake when he jinked past two defenders and sent a curling right-foot shot spinning into the far corner in injury-time.

Bayern Munich thumped Spartak Moscow 4-0 at home in their Group B opener and AS Roma beat Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0 in Rome in Group D.

A fancied Inter Milan side, though, slipped up in Lisbon, losing 1-0 to Sporting and having Patrick Vieira sent off midway through the second half.

In the other games, Valencia beat Olympiakos Piraeus 4-2 in Greece in a match in which both teams led during the game.

Fernando Morientes, the former Real Madrid striker back in Spain after a short sojourn in Liverpool, scored a hat-trick for Valencia.

There was one other scoreless draw result apart from Liverpool's and it was also in Group C with Galatasaray failing to score in Istanbul against French side Girondins Bordeaux.