0-4 SLOVAN BRATISLAVA MAN CITY: With an easy victory in Slovakia, Pep Guardiola’s team grabbed their first win of the most recent Champions League season.

Manchester City won their first Champions League match of the season with a destruction by the Danube.  The English winners left the Slovakian champions wishing they hadn’t qualified for the game in the first place, in a matchup of embarrassing proportions for UEFA. We refer to Bratislava as the ‘Little Big City’.

And in the Slovakian on Tuesday, it was glaringly clear who the minnows and titans were. To put the game into perspective, Erling Haaland receives a transfer fee of less than £850,000, which Slovan Bratislava has ever paid, in less than three weeks.

So it was not shocking when the best players under Pep Guardiola went on the rampage and secured three of the easiest points in their history in Europe. Although it was City’s first-ever game in Slovakia, this was the hosts’ first-ever home game in the biggest club football championship.Additionally, the Slovakian newcomers needed to win eight games and four qualifying rounds in order to secure a spot in the league stage. which made them enormous underdogs while facing the 2023 champions.  Guardiola named a good side despite making six changes, so none of this stopped him. This includes players like Phil Foden, who made just his second start of the season after nagging illness and injury, Haaland, and Ilkay Gundogan.

The difficult chore of replacing Rodri’s boots belonged to Matheus Nunes. Guardiola was clearly eager to get a decisive victory to atone for his team’s home draw against Inter Milan in the competition’s debut.

However, it was the home team that came dangerously close to taking the lead in the first two minutes when Marko Tolic curled a shot just inches wide after making a quick break. It was the high point of Bratislava’s evening, with City starting the assault six minutes later.

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Man City’s season-opening Champions League victory (Image: Getty Images)
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After finding space on the right, Jeremy Doku found Gundogan, and the captain of City sent a deflected volley past Dominik Takac. It was his first goal since joining the team again after his move from Barcelona.

On the fifteenth minute, Foden scored a fantastic goal into the bottom corner after Doku set him up. This gave City a two goal advantage. If there had been a contest at all, it was over now that it was over.

Instead, it seemed a bit of a farce, as Guardiola’s team appeared to be eager to score and appeared to be in a scoring frenzy. Takac denied Rico Lewis and Haaland, while Doku, Foden, and Gundogan all struck the woodwork.

It was like watching a cat maul a ball of wool, and Guardiola might as well have lit up a cigar in the dugout. There was nothing Bratislava could do about it.

Before halftime, City had 13 shots on goal; the only surprise was that the score stayed at 2-0 and Haaland had not scored. Referee Filippo Meli decided not to utilise any stoppage time before to halftime in order to save the hosts from further suffering because the match was so unfair.

Haland finally joined in the party, scoring his 42nd Champions League goal in just 41 games to top the all-time chart ahead of Sergio Aguero, a legend of City. Before James McAtee, a substitute, scored his first-ever goal for City to make it 4-0. However, Bratislava managed to escape further suffering on a night when double figures could have been the outcome had City been more clinical.