The early indications are that Manchester City will strut their way to a third Premier League title in five years by a country mile.
Yet they are still aliens in this red-carpet environment. Still not part of the assassin’s creed of the Champions League.
Impeccable in domestic competition, with a 100 per cent record and five straight clean sheets, nothing in the world's richest league could prepare Manuel Pellegrini’s men for this.
Juventus, fitted out in jet black and in full mastery of the dark arts, felled England’s finest with two late bullets from Mario Mandzukic and Alvaro Morata.
No English club made a European quarter-final last term and unless our clubs can discover the streetwise savvy of Turin’s Old Lady, they will struggle again.
City led fortuitously through a Giorgio Chiellini own goal which should have been ruled out for a foul by Vincent Kompany – but their European inferiority complex struck again in the final 20 minutes.
Juventus were finalists in June but have since lost Carlos Tevez, Arturo Vidal and Andrea Pirlo - and had taken just a point from three Serie A matches.
Yet inspired by Paul Pogba, a greater thoroughbred loss to Sir Alex Ferguson than even Rock of Gibraltar, they stole free-kicks, broke up play with tactical injuries, blunted City with their defensive steel, then cut them down with two bolts from the clear heavens.
City so often seem gripped by nervous tension on Champions League nights – as if the sound of the opera singer caterwauling the theme tune gives them the willies.
The librarian element in City’s support has come out, players who look monstrous in domestic action have appeared to shrink.
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