Arsenal beat Aston Villa 1-0 away from home to maintain its winning start to the Premier League while Barcelona and Roma preserved their perfect records in Spain and Italy with convincing wins on Monday.
Osasuna beat Getafe 1-0 to continue its unbeaten start in La Liga, while Atalanta had to wait until the final minute to get the goal that beat Bologna in Serie A.
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Atalanta's Gianluca Scamacca, right, fights for the ball with Bologna's Eivind Helland, left, during the Serie A soccer match between Atalanta and Bologna in Bergamo, Italy, Monday, Aug. 31 , 2026. (Spada/LaPresse via AP)
Arsenal's Bukayo Saka (7) scores his side's opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Aston Villa and Arsenal in Birmingham, England, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
Barcelona's Raphinha celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Rayo Vallecano in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Anthony Gordon celebrates with his teammate Barcelona's Raphinha, center, and Barcelona's Dani Olmo, right, after Rayo's Florian Lejeune scores an own goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Rayo Vallecano in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Lamine Yamal and Raphinha both scored a brace and English winger Anthony Gordon grabbed two assists as Barcelona beat Rayo Vallecano 5-2 to record its 21st consecutive home victory.
Rayo was looking for its first win of the season and it took an unexpected lead in the 12th minute when Sergio Camello hammered home a cutback from Álvaro García on the left.
Barcelona, however, bounced back almost immediately and it was 2-1 up before the first period was even halfway over.
Raphinha equalized with a well-taken goal in the 18th and Lamine Yamal put them ahead 90 seconds later with a characteristic move, cutting in from the right and unleashing a powerful left-foot shot into the roof of the net.
Hansi Flick's men got a third after halftime when Florian Lejeune turned Gordon’s cutback into his own net. Although the excellent Camello cut the deficit with a solid header, Raphinha soon made it 4-2 and Yamal rounded off the scoring with a low shot from just outside the box a minute from time.
The win moved Barcelona above Real Madrid at the top of the league on goal difference. Rayo sat third from bottom.
In Serie A, Donyell Malen took his season tally to five in two games as Roma went to Lecce and won 4-0.
Malen, who scored a hat trick in Roma’s opening win over Fiorentina, had Roma 2-0 up midway through the first half, and Matias Soulé added a third before halftime. Rodrigo Mora completed the scoring 20 minutes into the second half as Roma established its title credentials early.
The result, a second consecutive 4-0 win for the capital club, lifted Roma to the top of Serie A after two games.
Later, Atalanta sneaked past Bologna thanks to a stoppage time goal from Lazar Samardžić.
Neither side convinced in an ordinary encounter and it wasn’t until stoppage time that Samardžić’s long-range effort squirmed in past the Bologna goalkeeper.
The result was harsh on Bologna and left it pointless after two games.
Atalanta moved into the top five, one of six clubs with maximum points.
In England, reigning champion Arsenal recorded a familiar 1-0 win as Bukayo Saka’s 59th minute goal secured all three points at Aston Villa.
Villa is suffering after a string of high-profile departures in recent weeks, and struggled to make an impact. It ended a second game in a row without recording a shot on target.
Unai Emery’s side was pointless after two games, while counterpart Mike Arteta celebrated his 250th Premier League match in the dugout for Arsenal. Arteta was content to see his side become one of only four English teams to take maximum points from their first two games.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
Atalanta's Gianluca Scamacca, right, fights for the ball with Bologna's Eivind Helland, left, during the Serie A soccer match between Atalanta and Bologna in Bergamo, Italy, Monday, Aug. 31 , 2026. (Spada/LaPresse via AP)
Arsenal's Bukayo Saka (7) scores his side's opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Aston Villa and Arsenal in Birmingham, England, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
Barcelona's Raphinha celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Rayo Vallecano in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Anthony Gordon celebrates with his teammate Barcelona's Raphinha, center, and Barcelona's Dani Olmo, right, after Rayo's Florian Lejeune scores an own goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Rayo Vallecano in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae'Quan Wright participated in a walk-through practice conducted by first-year LSU coach Lane Kiffin on Monday as the 11th-ranked Tigers prepared for Saturday night's season opener against Clemson.
Whether Wright or a couple other players who spent part of this offseason with NFL clubs — defensive lineman Zxavian Harris and defensive back Blake Cotton —- ever suit up for LSU remains in doubt because of litigation. Like other power leagues, the Southeastern Conference last week passed a rule barring pro players from returning to the league and it was promptly put on hold by a Texas judge.
Kiffin wasn't about to allow any kind of criticism stop him from embracing the opportunity to bring in players like Wright, who played for him at Mississippi last season.
“I feel like my decisions should always be made in the best interest of the players that sit in this team room and not for my reputation, and how my decisions play in national media and other fan bases. I've never been that way and that could be wrong,” he said.
Kiffin said that if college players are being paid like professionals, he is willing to make the case that college teams should not hesitate to sieze opportunities to make late roster additions in much the same way NFL teams do. He also said he met with LSU team leaders about whether to welcome recent pros back to college just days before a season-opener.
“Every one of them was emphatic about, ‘If they can help us win, bring ’em,’” Kiffin said. “That made me feel a little better."
“This is how it works at the next level,” Kiffin added. “This is how the real world works.”
Kiffin said the SEC knows that Wright — as star tight end for Kiffin at Ole Miss last season — had joined LSU at least for practice. His first day on the field was Monday, meaning he would not be permitted to play against Clemson under the NCAA's mandated seven-day “aclimitization protocol.”
However, former Notre Dame defensive lineman Junior Tuihalamaka, who did not sign with an NFL team but is nonetheless suing for a fifth year of NCAA eligibility, started practicing earlier.
Defensive end Jack Pyburn, who spent training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after playing for LSU last season, was among the players suing the NCAA and was expected to come back to the Tigers after he was cut. Instead, he was claimed off of waivers on Monday by the Kansas City Chiefs.
Nearly 400 athletes have sued the NCAA and other defendants, seeking additional eligibility and claiming the organization’s 5-in-5 rule approved in June is unfair because it excludes members of the high school Class of 2022. More than 30 lawsuits, several of them in federal court, are in different stages of litigation. Some include a handful athletes who signed professional contracts, which prompted every Power Four conference to ban pros from returning to college – leading to even more court filings.
University presidents around the conference have expressed “a high level of frustration” with LSU since Friday, when a Louisiana judge included the SEC in his temporary restraining order against the NCAA, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because those discussions were not public. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in Baton Rouge.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, who previously worked on the same staff with Kiffin at Southern California, echoed those sentiments.
“Our presidents got this right in the Southeastern Conference,” Sarkisian said. "The fact that somebody out there is going to take a player off an NFL roster and tell somebody who’s been (on their college team) for nine months go kick rocks? That doesn’t sit well with me. I think that is wrong; that is morally wrong.”
Kiffin noted that LSU hasn't broken any conference rules - yet. Conference teams have to submit their final 2026 rosters the day before their season openers, which for most SEC teams is Friday.
“We’ll wait until this week to see if there’s any more guidance” from the courts, Kiffin said, discounting whether the “chaos” surrounding LSU at the moment might servse as a distraction to him or his team.
“I’ve lived with chaos for a long time," Kiffin said, noting that Ole Miss won the last five games he coached there while speculation swirled around whether and when he might leave to coach elsewhere.
“We’re going to have chaos, but we’re going to have controlled chaos and our team is going to understand why we do what we do," Kiffin added. "It doesn’t matter if national media doesn’t understand, or other fan bases.”
New artwork has gone up in the lobby of LSU's Football Operations Center. It shows the back of an LSU football player standing in the shadows of a tunnel entering a stadium. It states: “If you want to win at the highest level, you have to become a villain in someone else's story.”
AP Sports Writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed.
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Cleveland Browns tight end Dae'Quan Wright warms up before a preseason NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
