Champions League Talking Points as Kylian Mbappe Leaves Pep Guardiola's Manchester City Comfortably Numb At Santiago Bernabeu

Erling Haaland benched, Ruben Dias left on the floor and Josko Gvardiol ended up sliding - Kylian Mbappe co-directed a magical night with Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday. Mercurial Mbappe fired a stunning hat-trick to dump Pep Guardiola's Manchester City out of the UEFA Champions League as the record-time winners made a mockery of the blockbuster tie at home. Madrid's 3-1 triumph over the English Premier League holders sanctioned Guardiola's first exit from the elite competition before the traditional round of 16 phase.

The former FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager suffered his maiden rout prior to the knockout round in his 16th season. The record tenth meeting between Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti was headlined by on-song Mbappe, who became the first player to have hat tricks at Bernabeu (against Man City) and Camp Nou (against Barcelona) in Champions League history. Equalling Lionel Messi's lowkey feat in the Champions League, Madrid's No.9 is the joint-highest goal-getter (7) against Guardiola. With 358 goals and 142 assists 500 at the age of 26, the Frenchman has been directly involved in 500 goals (club and country) across all competitions.

Carlo Ancelotti called it 'Clasico' and it did not disappoint. #RealMadrid #ManchesterCity #ManchesterCityRealMadrid #ChampionsLeague #MCIvRMA pic.twitter.com/RXsULYN1N9

Why did Haaland fail to feature?

For the partisans, the writing was on the wall when Haaland's name went missing from the starting XI of the visitors. Fresh from an impressive brace against Los Blancos at Etihad, Haaland remained a benchwarmer in City's 3-6 aggregate trounce to Madrid. So why did Haaland start on the bench? City head coach Guardiola revealed that the ex-Borussia Dortmund