Man City might have proved Pep Guardiola wrong about perfection in football vs Real Madrid

It's less than a month since Pep Guardiola said that "perfection doesn't exist in football". At half-time at the Etihad on Wednesday around 50,000 Manchester City supporters would have disagreed with him, for once.

This was City scaling heights that might have felt unimaginable, but in truth, they've also felt like it's been coming. Guardiola's side have spluttered through much of this season, searching for something, lacking an edge, too many "happy flowers". Suddenly, they've come alive.

The only flowers they should be seeing now are the ones thrown onto an arena after those present have witnessed majesty. This was football in its purest form. It was breathtaking. It deserved the garlands.

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Real Madrid have been Europe's dominant club for a decade. They won last season's Champions League on the strength of their legend alone. But they were reduced to rubble at the Etihad, grasping for thin air, outplayed man for man.

It's too early to be talking of a changing of the guard. City need to actually go and win this competition first, although the celebrations in the blue and black half of Milan probably came to a shuddering halt last night, but the question shouldn't be can they win the Champions League under Guardiola. On the quality of this performance, it should be how often can they win the Champions League under Guardiola?

It's been a long time coming, but maybe this was the breakout night in Europe for this team. They reached the final two years ago but they saw off Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-finals behind closed doors. This was a different night against a different team. They say that Real Madrid never die in this competition,