Manchester City - Tottenham: goals record threatened more
It was a blistering opening 20 minutes from the two Premier League sides in the Champions League that broke one record and threatened several others.
When Tottenham Hotspur turned up at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday evening with a slender single-goal lead, many, including your truly, expected the opening stages to be a little cagey. Oh, how wrong could would be!
Goal-fest at the Etihad
We kicked off and within three minutes Raheem Sterling had levelled the tie on aggregate with a wonderful curling effort from just inside the area. Lloris, in the visitors' goal, threw himself full length but couldn't stop it nestling inside the far post. The sky blue crowd were loving it and waved their flags in a frenzy believing their team of heroes may go on and sweep the opposition aside as they have so many times before under Pep Guardiola's leadership. A South Korean called Son was about to change the mood.
Before the 10th minute, the Spurs forward - who seems to have no problem taking on the mantle of main goal threat when Harry Kane is unavailable - had the Londoners 1-2 ahead on the night. This 1-3 aggregate score meant City needed three goals to reach the Champions League semi-final, where Ajax await. The crowd realised that this was a big ask, the drop in enthusiastic noise made that clear, but at least there were 80 minutes to turn things around.
But they only had to wait another minute to see Bernardo Silva level things up on the night and then on minute 20, Sterling sent the home fans wild with a goal that left Spurs ahead only on the away goals rule. As you can see, our resident statistician Mr Chip certainly had a busy few minutes and this is how the game panned out...
Other Champions League/European Cup records
Feyenoord beat KR Reykjavík 12–2 in the first round in 1969–70. This is the overall record for all European Cup/Champions League matches.
Borussia Dortmund beat Legia Warsaw 8–4 in the group stage in 2016–17. This is the record for the Champions League era.
Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7–3 in the 1960 final. This is the overall record for all European Cup/Champions League finals.
The highest scoring draw is eight goals (four goals each):
Hamburg 4–4 Juventus in 2000–01
Chelsea 4–4 Liverpool in 2008–09
Bayer Leverkusen 4–4 Roma in 2015–16