BARCELONA: Robert Lewandowski scored his 100th Champions League goal as Barcelona beat Brest 3-0 to climb provisionally second in the Champions League group standings on Tuesday.
The veteran striker slotted home from the spot in the 10th minute to fire the Catalans ahead and reach his milestone, adding a second late on after Dani Olmo’s goal to inflict the French side’s first defeat.
After dropping points in their last two outings in La Liga, coach Hansi Flick had urged his players to “eliminate” mistakes in their game and Barca produced a solid display.
They got off the mark quickly when Brest goalkeeper Marco Bizot clumsily clattered into the back of Lewandowski after the forward controlled Pedri’s cross on his chest.
The striker dusted himself down and dispatched the penalty clinically to open the scoring after 10 minutes and bring up his century.
It made Lewandowski only the third player to reach that milestone in the competition, behind former Barcelona great Lionel Messi, on 129, and former Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo, with 140.
Under Flick, the forward’s form has improved significantly this season, reaching 22 goals in 19 appearances between La Liga and the Champions League.
The 36-year-old has made 125 Champions League appearances with Barcelona and before that German sides Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.
“I am very happy, many years ago I did not think I could score more than 100 goals in the Champions League,” Lewandowski told Movistar.
“For me the most important thing is that we try to win every game, if I can score, then that’s the perfect solution.
“I don’t know how many games we have left before the end of the year but we have to win them all and rest over Christmas.”
Barcelona were still without teenage star Lamine Yamal, recovering from an ankle problem, but Raphinha was busy on the right and the Catalans dominated proceedings.
They did not create many clear chances though until Fermin Lopez forced a fine save from Bizot with a diving header.
The Dutch goalkeeper made amends for his earlier mistake by denying the Spaniard with his leg.
Lopez again came close early in the second half when Lewandowski put him in with a neat flick but Bizot was alert to save his low effort.
Playmaker Olmo had an effort scrambled off the line by Brendan Chardonnet as Barcelona sought to put the game to bed.
The former RB Leipzig midfielder eventually grabbed the second in the 66th minute when he received Gerard Martin’s pass in the box, showing some nifty footwork to dodge Chardonnet and beat Bizot at the near post.
Brest thumped RB Salzburg 4-0 and had dropped just two points from their first four matches despite sitting in mid-table in Ligue 1, but were brought down to earth at the Olympic Stadium.
Mathias Pereira Lage drilled home to momentarily delight nearly 3,000 traveling supporters but their joy was curtailed when the linesman raised his flag for offside.
Barca substitute Pablo Torre should have netted Barcelona’s third when he intercepted a pass with just the goalkeeper to beat, but fired wide.
Instead the job fell to Lewandowski and he rolled home his 101st Champions League goal with aplomb, beyond Bizot’s outstretched arm.
Brest fall a few places down the table but their strong start to the campaign means they are well placed to secure at least a play-off spot, while Barcelona are aiming to reach the last 16 directly.
Flick’s side travel to last season’s runners-up Borussia Dortmund next, before visiting Benfica and hosting Atalanta.

DETROIT: If Donald Trump makes good on his threat to slap 25 percent tariffs on everything imported from Mexico and Canada, the price increases that could follow will collide with his campaign promise to give American families a break from inflation.
Economists say companies would have little choice but to pass along the added costs, dramatically raising prices for food, clothing, automobiles, booze and other goods.
The president-elect floated the tariff idea, including additional 10 percent taxes on goods from China, as a way to force the countries to halt the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into the US But his posts Monday on Truth Social threatening the tariffs on his first day in office could just be a negotiating ploy to get the countries to change behavior.
High food prices were a major issue in voters picking Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, but tariffs almost certainly would push those costs up even further.
For instance, the Produce Distributors Association, a Washington trade group, said Tuesday that tariffs will raise prices for fresh fruit and vegetables and hurt US farmers when other countries retaliate.
“Tariffs distort the marketplace and will raise prices along the supply chain, resulting in the consumer paying more at the checkout line,” said Alan Siger, association president.
Mexico and Canada are two of the biggest exporters of fresh fruit and vegetables to the US In 2022, Mexico supplied 51 percent of fresh fruit and 69 percent of fresh vegetables imported by value into the US, while Canada supplied 2 percent of fresh fruit and 20 percent of fresh vegetables.
Before the election, about 7 in 10 voters said they were very concerned about the cost of food, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters.
“We’ll get them down,” Trump told shoppers during a September visit to a Pennsylvania grocery store.
The US is the largest importer of goods in the world, with Mexico, China and Canada its top three suppliers, according to the most recent US Census data.
People looking to buy a new vehicle likely would see big price increases as well, at a time when costs have gone up so much they are out of reach for many. The average price of a new vehicle now runs around $48,000.
About 15 percent of the 15.6 million new vehicles sold in the US last year came from Mexico, while 8 percent crossed the border from Canada, according to Global Data.
Much of the tariffs would get passed along to consumers, unless automakers can somehow quickly find productivity improvements to offset them, said C.J. Finn, US automotive sector leader for PwC. That means even more consumers “would potentially get priced out,” Finn said.
Hardest hit would be Volkswagen, Stellantis, General Motors and Ford, Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska wrote Tuesday in a note to investors. “A 25 percent tariff on Mexico and Canada would severely cripple the US auto industry,” he said.
The tariffs would hurt US industrial production so much that “we expect this is unlikely to happen in practice,” Roeska said.
The tariff threat hit auto stocks on Tuesday, particularly shares of GM, which imports about 30 percent of the vehicles it sells in the US from Canada and Mexico, and Stellantis, which imports about 40 percent from the two countries. For both, about 55 percent of their lucrative pickup trucks come from Mexico and Canada. GM stock lost almost 9 percent of its value, while Stellantis dropped nearly 6 percent.
It’s not clear how long the tariffs would last if implemented, but they could force auto executives to move production to the US, which could create more jobs in the long run. However, Morningstar analyst David Whiston said automakers probably won’t make any immediate moves because they can’t quickly change where they build vehicles.
Millions of dollars worth of auto parts flow across the borders with Mexico and Canada, and that could raise prices for already costly automobile repairs, Finn said.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the US said tariffs on tequila or Canadian whisky won’t boost American jobs because they are distinctive products that can only be made in their country of origin. In 2023, the US imported $4.6 billion worth of tequila and $108 million worth of mezcal from Mexico and $537 million worth of spirits from Canada, it said.
“Tariffs on spirits products from our neighbors to the north and south are going to hurt US consumers and lead to job losses across the US hospitality industry,” it added.
Electronics retailer Best Buy said on its third-quarter earnings conference call that it runs on thin profit margins, so while vendors and the company will shoulder some increases, Best Buy will have to pass tariffs to customers. “These are goods that people need, and higher prices are not helpful,” CEO Corie Barry said.
Walmart also warned last week that tariffs could force it to raise prices.
Tariffs could trigger supply chain disruptions as people buy goods before they are imposed and companies seek alternate sources of parts, said Rob Handfield, a professor of supply chain management at North Carolina State University. Some businesses might not be able to pass on the costs.
“It could actually shut down a lot of industries in the United States. It could actually put a lot of US businesses out of business,” he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who talked with Trump after his call for tariffs, said they had a good conversation about working together. “This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau said.
Trump’s threats come as arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico have been falling. But arrests for illegally crossing the border from Canada have been rising over the past two years. Much of America’s fentanyl is smuggled from Mexico, and seizures have increased.
Trump has sound legal justification to impose tariffs, even though they conflict with a 2020 trade deal brokered in large part by Trump with Canada and Mexico, said William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Clinton administration trade official. The treaty, known as the USMCA, is up for review in 2026.
In China’s case, he could simply declare Beijing hasn’t met obligations under an agreement he negotiated in his first term. For Canada and Mexico, he could say the influx of migrants and drugs are a national security threat, and turn to a section of trade law he used in his first term to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum.
The law he would most likely use for Canada and Mexico has a legal process that often takes up to nine months, giving Trump time to seek a deal.
If talks failed and the duties were imposed, all three countries would likely retaliate with tariffs on US exports, said Reinsch, who believes Trump’s tariffs threat is a negotiating ploy.
US companies would lobby intensively against tariffs, and would seek to have products exempted. Some of the biggest exporters from Mexico are US firms that make parts there, Reinsch said.
Longer term, Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the threat of tariffs could make the US an “unstable partner” in international trade. “It is an incentive to move activity outside the United States to avoid all this uncertainty,” she said.
Trump transition team officials did not immediately respond to questions about what he would need to see to prevent the tariffs from being implemented and how they would impact prices in the US
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own. Sheinbaum said she was willing to talk about the issues, but said drugs were a US problem.