Sporting coach Ruben Amorim pledged to play his strongest team possible at the Etihad next month in a bruising post-match inquest.
What should have been a happy night for Sporting as they celebrated being in the Champions League knockout rounds for just the second time in their history quickly became a horror show when Manchester City scored four first-half goals to effectively eliminate their opponents with three-quarters of the tie still to play.
Pep Guardiola was f ar from happy with his City side but they managed to add another goal in the second half when Raheem Sterling curled home a beauty from outside the box, shovelling extra salt into the open wounds of Sporting.
Amorim faced a number of tough questions about the performance of his side in his post-match press conference, and with Sporting six points behind leaders Porto as they try and defend their league title the coach was asked if he would play a weak team at the Etihad in the second leg to concentrate on competitions they can still win.
"No, we have to take advantage of these matches against the best teams in the world to play with our best players," Amorim insisted.
"I'm not going to save them and have youngsters playing against Man City in a full stadium. I'm not going to do that to my young players. The best ones are going to play and will suffer together. Next year we will be in this competition with more matches ready to face the Champions League.
"The most important thing is to learn, and to not spend so many years again without being in the Champions League. Nobody wants to take a heavy score but I'm not worried about it.
"I want to be here the next year and the year after, that's what the fans want and as a coach if we are able to stay one or two more years in the Champions League we will get better."
Amorim was also challenged on his decision to change the approach of the team after conceding early goals, with the suggestion that it had blunted their natural game.
The Sporting coach accepted responsibility for the move towards more long balls, but said he took the decision to limit the damage because he could sense that City were waiting to pick them off in possession and could have scored even more goals.
"Until the second goal we were playing like we usually do but we were unable to cope. They have a different quality.
"What we have to do in Manchester is protect them from another heavy score. We do our best. After the third goal, I gave them instructions to play long balls but I knew that we were suffering. We had to do our best to hold until the end of the match.
"If we went after the ball the score would have been worse. The players wanted to do it but they followed by indications: Do not lose your head. They were waiting for that, [Phil] Foden comes back and causes problems to our defence. We knew it was difficult.
"They followed my indications, I didn't want to be as aggressive and [City] are very strong in the transitions and without this aggressiveness we couldn't even get close to them to make a foul. Again, it was the coach's fault."
