LISBON (Reuters) – Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola stated Bernardo Silva was the “perfect participant” after the Portuguese midfielder’s double helped his aspect to safe a 5-0 win over Sporting Lisbon of their Champions League last-16 first leg on Tuesday.

Manchester City had been dominant from begin to end in the Portuguese capital to all however seal their spot in the quarter-finals, with the five-goal victory the joint-biggest profitable margin in a Champions League knockout sport.

Silva scored his first-ever Champions League brace and his first targets in the competitors in nearly a yr in a classic show, a efficiency all the sweeter on condition that he got here via the academy at Sporting’s rivals Benfica.

“I at all times inform him ‘you might be the perfect participant’,” Guardiola stated. “With the ball he is greater than distinctive, however I at all times say to him it’s a must to go and win video games, it’s a must to have the capacity to do it. He has the approach, the whole lot.

“This was his residence city, and he loves coming again right here. Of course he is a former Benfica participant, so this was particular for him tonight.”

Looking to go one higher after shedding in the last to Chelsea final season, and pursuing the one main trophy that has eluded Guardiola since he joined City in 2016, the Premier League champions laid down a marker in Lisbon.

But regardless of steering his aspect to their largest ever win in an away sport in any spherical of the competitors, the Spaniard was not completely glad with what he noticed in the Jose Alvalade Stadium.

“We defended properly and received an unimaginable consequence,” he added. “We have an obligation to have a look at the efficiency too, even when the consequence is a dream.

“The efficiency may have been higher. The distinction between the two groups is not 0-5, however we had been simply so scientific.

“If we do undergo to the quarter-finals, who is aware of what’s going to occur. Last season we made a perfect Champions League season, then we misplaced the last. Then we’re seen as a failure. I cannot disguise behind a 5-0 win, there is an extended approach to go.”

(Reporting by Peter Hall; modifying by Clare Fallon)