Before we call for the expulsion of Atletico Madrid from Europe, or cast their coach Diego Simeone as the new child catcher in a remake of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , perhaps English football should put its own house in order.
Seldom, if ever, has a major quarter-final degenerated into a more hideous spectacle than the last rites of Manchester City's goalless draw in the Champions League at the Wanda Metropolitano on Wednesday night. The rolling maul, started by Felipe's cynical 'follow-through' on Phil Foden, and afters in the tunnel were all part of the script.
If Atletico were going to go out of the competition, they were always going to go down exhibiting the full plumage of dark arts. You wouldn't cross the road to watch them play when the ball becomes an irrelevant prop and settling scores becomes the only motivation.
For what it's worth, this armchair observer felt German referee Daniel Siebert made a rod for his own back by failing to book, never mind send off, Atletico defender Felipe for an unacceptably crude challenge which left Foden's head swathed in bandages. If Felipe had got his just desserts early in the piece, we might have been spared all the posturing and hair-pulling later.
My other knee-jerk observation is that Atletico is a team crafted in their own manager's image – a winner, but win at all costs - and, for that alone, they got exactly what they deserved. It is not often that neutrals feel overwhelmed with sympathy for Manchester City, a sporting institution rarely down to their last billion, so the level of provocation must have been bad.
But before we mount our high horses, and claim the moral high ground for English football, let's face facts: Everything in the garden here isn't a bed of roses. And, as every gardener knows, before the roses bloom, you often need a sack of manure. We are not pure as the driven snow in England. And we haven't been for more than half a century.
Those old enough to remember Gary Sprake laying out Bobby Gould with a left hook (at the expense of a booking and a jolly stern talking-to); Kevin Keegan and Billy Bremner's spot of Queenberry Rules at the Charity Shield; Francis Lee and Norman Hunter aldo going to the judges' scorecards; Arsenal and Manchester United exchanging pizzas at Old Trafford; Roy Keane pursuing referee Andy D'Urso like an irate terrier chasing the postman; or the Battle of Bramall Lane, to name just a few, will know we don't even make it out of the foothills, never mind reaching the moral high ground.
There was also, for example, regrettable leniency shown towards Wimbledon's original Crazy Gang under the smokescreen that their feats somehow constituted an unblemished fairytale. Think of John Fashanu's challenge on Gary Mabbutt, Vinnie Jones on Gary Stevens or the great Hollywood actor introducing himself to Steve McMahon in the 1988 FA Cup final and a pattern of excess bravado runs through the narrative.
More recently, a damaging trend of bullying has emerged, with too many managers barking so much at the fourth official between technical areas that you wonder how they know what's happening on the pitch. The worst two offenders I've seen in that regard – who shall remain nameless here - set a dreadful example.
And a creeping, insidious, largely unacknowledged form of bullying has seeped into English football's realm of 'normality' in recent seasons – where big clubs get nearly all the 50-50 decisions in their favour, and the chaff they expect to crush as a rite of passage get none.
It is hard for neutrals to feel too much sympathy for a team built on bottomless wealth. Even the purest purist would not expect Atletico to step aside and let City walk through them without presenting some kind of resistance, and events at the Fish Called Wanda Metropolitano left a bitter taste. But let's not pretend the beautiful game is without its scars in the Premier League.
Watch out, in particular, for managers talking about “game management.” More often than not, what they really mean is timewasting, rolling around feigning injury, keeping the ball out of play for as long as possible and running down the clock. Don't forget 'tactical' fouls – Pep Guardiola's City have been accused of using them by more than one high-profile manager.
And falling over too easily, or 'fishing' for penalties like a dog cocking its leg against a favoured lamp-post, is still too prevalent for us to feel smug. Those traits will all feature somewhere at a professional football match near you this weekend.
Dark arts? Atletico Madrid should channel more energy through the likes of Antoine Griezmann, a fabulous footballer, than disfiguring Champions League quarter-finals. But let's clean up our own act before pretending that puerile behaviour has not been camped on our doorstep for ages.
