LISBON, Portugal - Manchester City won 5-0 on the opening night of the Champions League knockout rounds to remind the rest of Europe that they are favorites to lift the trophy in St Petersburg in May. Cause.
The last-16 tie with Sporting Lisbon ended after 30 minutes when Phil Foden dipped in City's third goal.
Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva had already found the net and before the Serbian referee managed to blow his half-time whistle, Silva, thanks to his every touch for his ties with Benfica, scored a fourth.
City became the first team to score four goals in the first half of a Champions League tie. Game over. The work is over.
When Raheem Sterling made it 5-0 with a goal that moved him into City's all-time top-10 goalscorers, there was still more than half an hour to play. The only incentive for Sporting to arrive in Manchester in three weeks' time is to try to avoid a 12–1 aggregate loss to Bayern Munich when they last reached the knockout rounds in 2009. One double performance from City and it will be a close matter.
City boss Pep Guardiola later said: "It's a great team, they are the champions of Portugal but I'm very happy as we take a big step towards the next round."
"It's just a game with a great result. We have one more game to get into the quarter-finals and that's what you want."
On their final visit to Sporting Lisbon in 2012, City lost 1–0 in the last 16 of the Europa League, but they are now a different animal.
The defending champions of Portugal parted ways in almost defamatory fashion. Guardiola's team was like a sprinter trying to use the heats for the main event, only to accidentally break the world record.
Made to settle with silver last season, they are aiming for gold this time, and speculators, at least, believe they are likely to do so. It is difficult to argue with this evidence.
The stars of Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid, 1,000 miles northeast of the French capital, may have been eyeing more, but what makes Guardiola a force to be reckoned with is in collective talent rather than reliance on individual moments of talent – although there were Bernardo's volleys. 2-0 with Sterling and Sterling's second half with a brilliant 20-yard strike.
Speaking ahead of the game, Guardiola called it "harmony" and everything was fine here.
The job now is to keep that up despite six more games, and if City need to be reminded of what can happen in this competition, they just need to look to their surroundings.
City arrived at the José Alvalade stadium for the pandemic-hit Champions League mini-tournament in 2020, which saw Real Madrid knock out Real Madrid in the final round, but plotted to shoot themselves after a 3-1 loss to Lyon in the quarter-finals.
The Champions League sometimes does strange things for Guardiola, such as starting a final against Chelsea without a defensive midfielder.
There was no problem this time, but there is still a long way to go and better teams are yet to come.
Guardiola will be happy with a clean sheet against Sporting as his team scored 10 goals in the group stages, five more goals in their entire campaign last season.
There were a moment or two of panic at the break at the start of the first half that would need to be overcome but Sporting's involvement was soon reduced to a demoralizing game of chase. He was not even allowed a corner, let alone a single shot on the target. You only knew that it was impossible to miss his pink kit because Ederson was on the pitch.
Sporting coach Rubén Amorim couldn't help but be impressed - "he killed us every time we got into our box" - although Guardiola still wanted more.
"Some players did poorly and we lost easy deliveries but we were so clinical," he said. "The difference between the two teams is not 5-0 but we were so clinical. We punished them.
"There's a rule in football when you have the ball and that's not to lose it. We had some simple passes that we lost. Against the top sides in Europe we would be punished.
"The players know me and the way we work, we can do better. I'm incredibly happy, please don't get me wrong, but we can do better."
PSG, Real Madrid and every other team with Champions League ambitions this season can consider themselves a warning.