Chelsea vs Man City makes history as it becomes the first ever £1BILLION game based on transfer fees

Chelsea's clash against Manchester City made history after becoming the first £1B match.

The Blues were beaten 2-0 by the reigning Premier League champions at Stamford Bridge to start their season with a loss.

The two starting XIs named by managers Enzo Maresca and Pep Guardiola had a combined value of £999,700,000 in terms of fees paid for the players.

Chelsea's first team made up £561.3million of that overall figure.

The Blues' side boasted two players who were bought for at least £100m.

Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez were two parts of a three-man midfield worth £259m.

While Man City's starting line-up was worth £483.4m, with defender Josko Gvardiol the most expensive player at £77m.

Two players started the game, which cost neither of the clubs a penny in transfer fees.

Levi Colwill and Rico Lewis came through the Chelsea and City academies before turning pro.

The billion-pound mark was then broken in the 58th minute as £51m substitute Pedro Neto replaced the £58m Christopher Nkunku.

The total amount spent on players to make an appearance was boosted even further after Marc Guiu, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Renato Viera came on for the Blues.

Phil Foden came on for City but he was an academy product too.

The two sides' benches were also worth a staggering amount of money.

Maresca had £250.25m worth of talent at his disposal, including Tosin Adarabioyo, who signed on a free transfer in the summer.

City's bench included £100m Jack Grealish and £53m Matheus Nunes.

In total, Guardiola's bench was worth £290.5m.

However, that does not include the values of academy products Nico O'Reilly, James McAtee and Foden, who would now be worth a fortune combined largely thanks to the England forward's estimated price tag.

Chelsea's squad could have been worth even more as it did not include the likes of Raheem Sterling or Romelu Lukaku.

Sterling joined the club from City in a £47m deal, while the striker arrived for an eye-watering fee of £97.5m back in 2021.

Chelsea's entire matchday squad did not include a single player who helped the club win the Champions League in 2021.