Mbappe talk will dominate but Man City are phenomenal

Manchester City were sensational against Sporting Lisbon; it will be dismissed but it shouldn’t be.

In youth football on a Sunday morning, struggling teams are allowed to bring on an extra child when the deficit stretches to four goals. It can make the game look faintly ludicrous but it rarely staunches the flow of goals as the excess player largely just gets in their teammates’ way. It’s never quite the advantage that the rule-makers envisaged, particularly when the gap stretches to 12 goals and eight hapless players are literally falling over each other’s feet as five far, far better footballers continue to mark every single goal with a relentlessly enthusiastic ‘Siuu’ celebration.

Sporting could have brought on one, two or even three more accomplished, professional footballers on Tuesday night and Manchester City could not have been stopped from gleefully waltzing through their defence, seemingly playing a different version of the sport to anybody else in Europe. Yes, we could talk about financial dominance. Yes, we could talk about Sporting simultaneously being Portuguese champions and yet the paupers of this fixture. But City are not the only big-spending side in Europe and yet they are the only team currently capable of such painful brilliance. They are astonishing. They are relentless. They are extraordinary.

The contrasts were there on Tuesday night – with the caution of Real Madrid and the initial impotence of PSG in Paris, and with the predictably half-arsed mess of Manchester United in the Premier League – but most will choose to ignore it, dismissing this score-line as yet more evidence of the financial chasms in football without examining a performance that showcased everything that has led City here – to 12 wins in 13 unbeaten games, to almost 100 goals by mid-February, to favourites at home and in Europe.

Sporting will be dismissed as sacrificial lambs but Real Madrid would not have done this in Lisbon. Nor would Chelsea nor Bayern Munich nor PSG. Liverpool might, but the truth is that this season’s Liverpool do not look quite as devastating as this City; no team flows like this City side, who work and press and work and then score brilliant individual goals followed by brilliant team goals that end in simple finishes. The front five all either scored or assisted and the majority did both, with Riyad Mahrez making a mockery of his 100/1 PFA Player of the Year odds with his 17th goal of the season.

There is literally zero doubt that City are the best team in Europe. That might not make them European champions – history suggests it probably won’t – but their brilliance deserves more than a wave of the hand amid muttering about oil money. When you see Kevin de Bruyne maniacally chasing down a defender when leading 5-0, that’s not about money, but extraordinary levels of motivation, as demanded by an endlessly ambitious coach.

Some will always find this kind of domination boring, but the football itself is far from dull if you actually watch, rather than just tut at the score-line. They move the ball forward quickly, they are dynamic, they are direct when the situation demands. This is not sterile possession but truly devastating football played by a team that would have gone stale at any other club. Stale? They still look like they could improve.