You've heard of the butterfly effect, right? The idea that one small movement or decision can eventually cause chaos elsewhere? Well, settle in and prepare yourself for a story that well and truly stretches the boundaries of that rule.
Manchester City are steamrolling their way through the Premier League once again (how boring), with the reigning champions odds-on to notching their fourth top-flight title in five years.
Pep Guardiola owes Benfica a fair bit for his side's recent dominance, with the core of City's side including a number of players to have once been associated with the Portuguese giants.
Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias and Ederson all spent a large part if not all of their youth careers at Benfica, leading you to wonder just how good they could have been had they not sold off all their finest talents.
City Is Ours writer Alex Brotherton was joined by Portuguese football expert Tom Kundert on the MEN's latest Facebook Live, with City's array of former Benfica superstars the topic of conversation.
Alex kicked off the discussion by asking Tom how highly the aforementioned players were rated during their time at Benfica, and Tom revealed an interesting chain of events including a certain Cristiano Ronaldo that perhaps sparked Benfica's youth policy and then led to City's dominance.
TK: "Sporting [Lisbon] are actually the club who have traditionally produced the best Portuguese players. Everyone knows about Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo - they both came from Sporting.
"So Benfica, about 12 or 15 years ago now, made a decision to build a huge new academy. It took a while to get going and then they started producing fantastic players of their own.
"Unfortunately for Benfica fans, quite often they weren't actually profited from a sporting point of view by Benfica.
"Bernardo is often cited by Benfica fans as a perfect example of 'what's the point in creating these great players if they don't end up playing for us?'.
"Benfica just got this fantastic training academy together and it produced player after player. There are all the ones who went to City, you've also got players like Renato Sanches and Joao Felix who sold for huge fees.
"But that was a bit of a problem for Benfica fans. It was seen almost as a money-making machine and not perhaps something more solid to build Benfica themselves.
"That's something the president at the time always said [that the club would keep the players and build] but it never came to pass. They'd always end up selling the players and then getting other ones in, mainly foreign players.
"It's kind of a double-edged sword this fantastic academy which Benfica have created. I think everyone is impressed in Portugal and everyone in football has no doubt that it's done a fantastic job for so many years - it's dried up a bit recently - but then there's the other side of the coin. What's it actually resulted in for Benfica?
"As far as the three players go [Bernardo, Cancelo and Dias] they're the basis of the Portugal team for possibly the next five or 10 years, although they haven't quite produced the same form for the Portuguese national team as they have at City."
Having revealed Benfica fans' regret at allowing Bernardo to leave the club, Tom went on to add that the midfielder could well move back to his former club in the near future.
TK: "I'm sure that everyone at Manchester city knows that he [Bernardo] is Benfica through and through, despite never getting a chance to play for their first team.
"He never misses a chance to express his love for Benfica and how he'd maybe one day like to go back there. He thought he was never given a chance and maybe he was right."
Who do you think City's best ex-Benfica player is? Follow City Is Ours team members Ross Jackson and Alex Brotherton, and Portuguese football expert Tom Kundert on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
