Nine goals. Away from home. In their first Champions League season. Como did not just beat Lens 9-1 in France; they rewrote what a debutant is supposed to look like.

Anastasios Douvikas led the demolition with a hat-trick, but this was a collective rampage. Nico Paz added a goal and two assists, while Lucas Da Cunha, Marc-Oliver Kempf, Mattia Liberali, Martin Baturina and Matteo Papaccioli all joined the scoring. Lens, hosts and bystanders at once, simply could not find a way to slow the Italians down. The result equals the record for goals scored by one side in a single Champions League match, a mark previously reached only by Bayern Munich, who beat Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in the league phase last year.

It is also the first time since Feyenoord thrashed Olympiakos in 1971 that a club has scored nine on the road in the European Cup. The margin of eight is rarer still. Only Liverpool, who beat Besiktas 8-0 in 2007, and Real Madrid, who beat Malmo by the same score in 2015, had managed it since the modern format began in 1992. Cesc Fàbregas's side now have three wins from four, and the pattern is hard to dismiss: they have already beaten RB Leipzig and Manchester United 4-1 at home.