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Pep Guardiola hailed Kevin De Bruyne’s “extraordinary” form after the Belgian was involved in all three goals as Manchester City beat FC Copenhagen 3-1 on Tuesday to close in on the Champions League quarter-finals.

De Bruyne’s early opener was cancelled out against the run of play by Magnus Mattsson.

Bernardo Silva restored City’s lead before half-time, but they had to wait until stoppage time to add further punishment for the hosts when Phil Foden turned home De Bruyne’s cut-back.

De Bruyne was sidelined for five months by a hamstring tear suffered on the opening night of the Premier League season in August.

But since his return last month, the 32-year-old has scored two goals and provided seven assists in seven appearances.

“Extraordinary,” said Guardiola of De Bruyne’s statistics. “The biggest players love to appear in the biggest stages.

“It’s the hour of truth when you are in the last 16 of the Champions League and we start well.”

The English champions have now won 11 consecutive games in all competitions as they remain on course to repeat last season’s treble of Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.

Copenhagen had not played a competitive game for two months since sealing their place in the last 16 by dumping out Manchester United and Galatasaray in the group stages.

“They had a great group stage so we had to respect them,” said De Bruyne. “We started really well but I think we made one mistake and they pounced on it.

“We played a really good game. In the second half we created a lot of chances, could have scored more and luckily in the end we scored the third one, so it is a little bit of an advantage now.”

Grealish injury blow

That lack of match sharpness from the Danish champions showed in the early stages as City stormed out of the blocks.

De Bruyne headed a glorious chance wide and Kamil Grabara denied Ruben Dias with a fine save inside six minutes.

The former Liverpool goalkeeper had no chance when De Bruyne broke the deadlock on 10 minutes with a clinical low finish from Foden’s pass.

Jack Grealish had been surprisingly handed just his second start of the year by Guardiola, but the England international lasted just 15 minutes before he pulled up with a suspected groin injury.

City had enjoyed nearly 80 percent possession and barely let Copenhagen inside their half for the first 35 minutes, yet were made to pay for one moment of sloppiness.

Ederson’s poor clearance was straight into the path of Mohamed Elyounoussi and his blocked shot fell to Mattson to mark his debut with a stunning strike from outside the box.

City regained their composure and the lead before half-time.

Mattson was unfortunate as his attempted clearance ricocheted off De Bruyne and perfectly into the path of Silva to flick beyond Grabara.

The Copenhagen goalkeeper kept his side in the tie in the early stages of the second period with spectacular stops to deny De Bruyne and Doku.

Grabara then twice won a head-to-head battle with Haaland in stoppage time.

City were keen to build up a comfortable advantage with the second leg falling between crucial Premier League games against Manchester United and Liverpool next month.

And they finally got the third goal that should kill off the tie when the in-form Foden slammed home his 15th goal of the season as City extended their unbeaten run in European competitions to 21 games.

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The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has delayed its top-level trials of blue cards and sin bins following backlash to the lawmakers’ plans, according to The Telegraph’s Ben Rumsby.

The IFAB planned to announce its upcoming tests in professional football on Friday. The trials could’ve reportedly begun as early as the summer, with the English Football Association considering volunteering the women’s and men’s FA Cups as testing grounds.

A referee brandishing a blue card was intended to signal 10 minutes in the sin bin for players who committed cynical fouls or showed dissent toward a match official. Sin bins were apparently successfully trialed in amateur and youth football in England and Wales, with yellow cards used to indicate the punishment. The IFAB announced its intention to introduce sin bins at higher levels of football last November, Sky Sports’ Kaveh Solhekol reported on Thursday.

However, the addition of blue cards shocked the football community.

FIFA, world football’s governing body, was among the many voices in the sport to speak out against the IFAB’s plans. The organization said it would only entertain further trials below soccer’s leading competitions.

“FIFA wishes to clarify that reports of the so-called ‘blue card’ at elite levels of football are incorrect and premature,” read the statement posted on X.

“Any such trials, if implemented, should be limited to testing in a responsible manner at lower levels, a position that FIFA intends to reiterate when this agenda item is discussed at the IFAB AGM on 2 March.”

Premier League managers were asked about their thoughts on blue cards ahead of the weekend fixtures, with Tottenham Hotspur’s Ange Postecoglou and Chelsea’s Mauricio Pochettino among the prominent names speaking out against the IFAB’s idea.

“I don’t know why a different color card is going to make a difference,” Postecoglou said, according to Football London’s Lee Wilmot. “I don’t know about this taking things from other sports. Other sports are trying to make their games faster, we’re bringing in more clutter.”

Former England striker Chris Sutton, now a prominent pundit for BBC Sport, criticized the IFAB for “complicating the game even more” with its latest initiative and prioritizing it ahead of issues such as the “outdated head injury protocol.”

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Blue cards were shown the red card, for now.

Soccer’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), reportedly cowered from trialing a new card color to signal 10-minute sin-bin periods on Friday following widespread backlash to the plan. The punishment for players who commit cynical fouls or show dissent was due for top-level tests as soon as this summer and potentially in competitions as revered as the women’s and men’s FA Cups in England.

This isn’t the first example of the IFAB needlessly meddling with the world’s most popular sport – and it won’t be the last. Even this scatterbrained idea isn’t dead: Blue cards and sin bins will be up for discussion at the IFAB’s annual meeting in March.

The general consensus is that this latest initiative was plucked from the laws of rugby, along with another IFAB suggestion for only captains to discuss decisions with a match referee. Taking inspiration from a sport with limited appeal when compared to the global might of soccer, and one so complicated that it regularly offers in-game explanations of officials’ decisions to television viewers, seems rather peculiar.

FIFA was keen to distance itself from the IFAB experiments being held in professional soccer when the reports surfaced on Thursday. “Any such trials, if implemented, should be limited to testing in a responsible manner at lower levels,” world football’s governing body posted on X.

“It’s not football anymore,” UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin told The Telegraph when asked about his stance on sin bins in January. Ultimately, his opinion doesn’t matter. UEFA competitions must adopt whatever the IFAB adds to the laws of the game.

The blue-card bombshell followed a report by The Times’ Martyn Ziegler on Tuesday that claimed the IFAB was proposing “cooling-off periods” when on-pitch bickering is reaching breaking point and tempers are about to boil over.

Giving footballers toddler-esque timeouts and introducing blue cards would add more stoppages to a sport that prides itself on its flow and relentlessness. There would inevitably be consistency issues, too. The use of video assistant referees (VARs) has added an extra layer to the decision-making process, and with that, further risk of human error or differing interpretations. These risks range from egregious mistakes – such as Liverpool attacker Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal from an onside position against Tottenham Hotspur last September – to minor yet incessant quibbling, such as trying to determine if a player’s arm was in a “natural position” when they potentially committed a handball or, in the case of the latest changes, which words or actions constitute dissent.

(The confusion over the handball law is another matter bungled by the IFAB. Frankly, fans shouldn’t have to read up on the ever-changing rules to enjoy the sport to the fullest. This is meant to be a hobby, a form of entertainment. Watching football on Saturday shouldn’t be the sixth day of the working week. The IFAB is directly responsible for the current scenario where refereeing – and not actual football – often dominates the post-match conversation.)

The glaring and under-discussed problem linked to sin bins, timeouts, the implementation of VAR, and other changes to the on-pitch product is that fans weren’t asked if they wanted these things. Introducing harsher punishments for tactical fouls – which usually incur a yellow card – may prove popular among some supporters, but are sin bins really the best route? Would the risk of incurring a blue card encourage teams to swap an aggressive, attacking approach for a more conservative and ultimately less entertaining game plan? Will a goalkeeper vacate the net for dissent? Is 10 minutes too much? Does the opportunity to render more game-changing decisions nudge referees closer to center stage when players should always be the stars?

Perhaps we, the people who obsess over the sport, should be invited into the discussion. The IFAB – the self-described “independent guardians” of football’s rules – shouldn’t be so autonomous.

“I don’t know why they don’t leave the game alone at times,” said Everton’s Sean Dyche, who was among a stream of Premier League managers to voice opposition to the IFAB’s blue-card campaign. “I don’t think it’s needed, I don’t think it’s wanted.”

Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou noted that while “other sports are trying to make their games faster, we’re bringing in more clutter.”

A growing issue in football seems to be that executives and lawmakers are trying to look busy by making tweaks to the game without consulting fans, the lifeblood of the sport.

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High-profile trials of referees using a blue card to signal 10 minutes in the sin bin could take place as soon as the summer, according to The Telegraph’s Ben Rumsby.

The initiative was approved by the sport’s law-making body, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), and will be officially announced Friday, according to Rumsby. The IFAB is then expected to sign off on extended tests of blue cards and sin bins in senior levels of football during its annual meeting in March, Sky Sports’ Kaveh Solhekol reports.

The punishment would occur when players commit cynical fouls or show dissent. Two blue cards would result in a red card and dismissal, as would one blue and one yellow card.

Sin-bin trials have already been held in amateur and youth football in England and Wales. Encouraged by their apparent success, the IFAB recommended sin bins be implemented at higher levels of the game.

FIFA, however, called Thursday’s reports “incorrect and premature.”

“Any such trials, if implemented, should be limited to testing in a responsible manner at lower levels, a position that FIFA intends to reiterate when this agenda item is discussed at the IFAB AGM on 1 March,” the governing body said in a brief statement.

Mark Bullingham, the chief executive of the English Football Association who’s also on the IFAB board, said last November that a key aim of sin bins is to try to address tactical fouls – when a promising attack is scuppered by a deliberate illegal challenge. These incidents usually result in a yellow card.

The tougher stance on dissent, along with another potential trial that would only allow captains to discuss decisions with referees, is aimed at clamping down on poor player behavior.

The English FA could volunteer to use the FA Cup as part of the trials, Rumsby adds.

Sin bins won’t be introduced at Euro 2024 in the summer or next season’s Champions League. However, UEFA will have to include blue cards and sin bins in its competitions if the IFAB eventually adds them to the laws of the game.

Even if the trial is deemed successful, the new rules can’t become part of the sport’s official laws until 2026-27 at the earliest, according to Dale Johnson of ESPN.