Manchester City are off and running in the defence of the Champions League trophy following their 3-1 victory over Red Star Belgrade at the Etihad Stadium.
Man City dominated proceedings, but the visitors took a shock lead before the break when Osman Bukari fired them in front at the stroke of halftime as VAR awarded the goal having initially been ruled offside.
Mirko Ivanic’s pass found Bukari in an onside position. He held his composure in a one-on-one situation with Ederson and fired his effort away from the City keeper into the back of the net.
City who were wasteful the entire half saw themselves going into the break trailing by a goal.
However, they responded within a minute of the restart through Julian Alvarez who latched onto a pass from Haaland and rounded Red Star goalkeeper Omri Glazer before slotting the ball home.
Kyle Walker saw his goal disallowed by VAR for offside in the 52nd minute but Alvarez was gifted his second goal of the evening following a terrible mistake by Glazer in the 60th minute.
The Israeli goalkeeper missed his connection with Alvarez’s curling free-kick and instead punched the ball into the top-right corner of his own net. What should’ve been a routine stop handed City the lead instead.
Two minutes later, the visitors had space on the break down the right flank and Bukari passed the ball to Hwang In-beom to shoot first time, but his effort was saved by Ederson.
Manchester City also had chances of themselves in the next few minutes but efforts from Jeremy Doku and Erling Haaland were saved by Glazer.
In the 73rd minute, Rodri topped off his great performance with a brilliant goal. The Spaniard received the ball from Phil Foden, danced his way through the Red Star defense, and placed a curling strike beyond the reach of Glazer.
Manchester City had 76% of the ball, made 733 passes with a 92% accuracy, and attempted 37 shots with 16 of them hitting the target. Red Star were second best in everything the entire evening.
