There was a solemn apology from Schalke in the aftermath of this defeat, the second-biggest aggregate hiding in the history of the Champions League, one that seemed to acknowledge not just the margin of their opponent’s victory but also the manner of the demolition.
There were lots of goals for Manchester City, 10 over the two games, seven on the night and 26 in eight Champions League matches for Pep Guardiola’s side, but there was also a remorselessness about the way they went about it. No side in the last eight of the competition has scored more goals than City and while this might have had none of the drama of the miracle in Paris that those from Old Trafford pulled off, it is hard to think of a side more tuned up for this competition.
It is just the third time in City’s history that the club has reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League, although they have never looked more like they belong there. There is no question that the men from Schalke in high-viz green were dreadful on the night, caught between chasing the game or parking the bus, succeeded only in doing neither. By the end, however, they seemed mesmerised by something else too, perhaps the reputation of their opposition and the memory of City’s last-minute 10-man win in Gelsenkirchen two weeks earlier.
Guardiola said later that the turning point was at 2-1 down with 25 minutes left away to Schalke when he said the game could have got away from his side had they fallen further behind rather than win the game 3-2. It was certainly not his most convincing alternative narrative given the Etihad evisceration that had just taken place - during which it felt like City could have scored any number of goals and Schalke would have been powerless to stop them.
It should be said that two of the home team’s best performers were both former Schalke players, Leroy Sane and Ilkay Gundogan, who did much of the damage in this cruellest of evenings for the German club. There will be Schalke players in the last eight of the competition, just none that currently play for the club. Once City found their rhythm after the half hour, their opposition just felt incidental to it all. “We can only apologise for tonight”, Schalke’s official Twitter feed posted at the end, by which time even their noisy support had fallen into quiet contemplation.
There was a role to play for the video assistant referee too, the Frenchman Nicolas Rainville, who might be named for an evening in Manchester. From his screen in Uefa headquarters he kept the stadium waiting on a number of occasions as he considered the decisions of the on-field officials and the crowd grew restless with the delay. Rainville overruled his colleagues significantly only once, judging that Raheem Sterling’s fine volley on 56 minutes had been onside and a clear and obvious error committed in flagging it otherwise.
The first two goals from Sergio Aguero and another for Sane before half-time did not prompt any great change of direction at the break from Domenico Tedesco, the Schalke coach, and his beleaguered players lost their way completely. Sterling, Bernardo Silva and then the substitutes, Phil Foden and Gabriel Jesus, scored the four after half-time against a team that barely knew which way was up by the end.
“We are not the first team to let in a lot of goals here,” reflected Tedesco later, one of those new generation of coaches for whom Guardiola is the benchmark. “It is not important what other teams have done here. It is what we have done. After the first leg we thought we had a chance and could perform here. I think I sound mad after losing 7-0 but that is what I believed.”
It was over in the blink of an eye within seven first-half minutes when City finally reached the speed of play that Guardiola had in mind when he cajoled and berated his players towards the end of a largely uneventful opening half an hour. He was frustrated at the pace of the football from his team, if not the levels of possession which were naturally high, up to 72 per cent by half-time. He wanted the ball moved with one or two touches and not the relatively ponderous pace that his side started with.
Gundogan’s ball clipped over the top after half an hour fell for Bernardo Silva to run onto when the Portuguese playmaker felt an arm from Jeffrey Bruma thrust across his chest. The French referee, Clement Turpin, was slave to his VAR all night, but this decision of his passed muster. The challenge was clumsy from Bruma, a former Chelsea academy boy, and just about reached the benchmark.
Aguero let the goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann fling himself to his left before brushing a panenka down the centre of the goal. Tough on the big German who was caught out a couple of minutes later when Sterling, released by Gundogan, racked up another assist with a backheel to Aguero who took the ball with his right and then poked a shot through the goalkeeper’s legs.
Schalke collapsed quickly from then on. Oleksandr Zinchenko’s ball into the left channel for Leroy Sane three minutes before half-time was struck with his left foot into the far corner, the second of two goals against his old team over the tie. He scored another in the second half which was ruled out for offside, a decision approved by VAR.
After the break it was hard to see what approach Schalke had settled on. First Sterling scored with a shot taken first time from the right channel which VAR considered for some time. Then Bernardo Silva scored from the edge of the box from Sane’s cutback. Foden went round the hapless Fahrmann for six and the German goalkeeper dived over Jesus’ goal for the seventh. There was nothing left for Schalke to do but apologise. Burton Albion conceded nine here in January but that seemed to be little consolation for the team from Germany.