Kevin De Bruyne scored the only goal of the game, and Manchester City’s players gathered by the corner flag in front of their fans. “Celebrated” would probably be pushing it a bit. For the curious thing about City’s winning goal was how deeply unimpressed they all seemed about it. De Bruyne’s features were contorted into a growl. Bernardo Silva bellowed defiantly into the stands. Nathan Aké, to be honest, just looked buzzing to be there.
On the touchline Pep Guardiola angrily hurled a water bottle to the ground, furious at himself for feeling such relief.
But then this is what playing Atlético Madrid does to you. Whatever joy you once felt about the game, about football, about life itself, they will find and destroy. If they can’t win, they resolve to strip all the satisfaction of victory from you. Small wonder Guardiola was still scowling as he left the pitch to do his post-match interviews. Yes, Atlético had lost. But it didn’t really feel as if anyone had won.
The Etihad Stadium had been a restive and grouchy place for much of the evening. City fans are used to watching these matches – the endless hopeful through-balls and blocked shots and cleared crosses – through gritted teeth. They booed the Champions League anthem. They booed the Atlético players for not taking the knee. They booed the Romanian referee when he booked Gabriel Jesus late on.
They barracked Atlético’s tactical fouls and amateur dramatics, their pratfalling and Olympian timewasting. At one stage Jan Oblak caught a City cross and was still clutching the ball 20 seconds later as if it were a sleeping infant. It was the ninth minute. Every City outfield player was camped deep in the Atlético half. Back at the City end Ederson was changing into comfy trousers and ordering a Deliveroo. Could Atlético really keep up this grizzled rearguard for another 80 minutes, let alone another 170?
If any team could, it would be one led by Diego Simeone. Most sides quickly crack under City’s unrelenting pressure, the barrage of high-jeopardy decisions, the torrent of stress. To play for Simeone, on the other hand, is to live in perpetual stress. Training is stress. Team meetings are stress. To catch Simeone’s eye accidentally in the corridor or ask him to pass the marmalade at breakfast is stress. And so, as City raised the curtain on their theatre of pain, they discovered a willing audience already in their seats.
An hour later, very little had materially changed. A consensual stalemate had broken out. The Etihad Stadium was still grumbling quietly. As the second half began, Oblak had still not had a save to make. The ball boy behind the City goal had had more touches than Antoine Griezmann. Meanwhile, back in the City half, Ederson was listening to a podcast.
On the touchline Guardiola scratched his perfect gleaming expanse of scalp, returned to the bench and pondered his next move. Everything just felt a little stately, a little stuffy, a little too controlled. At every turn City were being confronted by an urban thicket of brick walls and tattooed legs and broken glass. Who better, then, to navigate this jungle than City’s very own street footballer?
It was a triple substitution. Jesus for Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish for Ilkay Gündogan and Phil Foden for Riyad Mahrez. Immediately Atlético had a different puzzle to solve. With Mahrez you know that at some stage he is going to cut in off the right and look for a gap. With Foden you do not really have a clue. And so it was that barely a minute after entering the pitch, Foden was standing in a perfect square of space bounded by four Atlético players.
Foden got the ball, took a look, saw De Bruyne. He could have played the pass straight away. But something did not feel right. Too much space. So he kept the ball, knocked it from foot to foot, drawing the red shirts towards him. This is perhaps Foden’s best quality in tight games: he wants you to hunt him down, he wants you so close you can smell the Lynx on his neck.
That is when he does you.
At the moment Reinildo dived in, Foden slipped the ball between his legs: the third change of direction in just a couple of seconds. No defender can follow movement at that speed. Even the eye struggles. And so as De Bruyne ran clear and tucked in a low finish, a taut, draining game had its first real moment of grace.
But it would not be the last. For the last 20 minutes Foden played Atlético like an accordion, as City threatened the second goal that would probably kill off the tie for good. There was an incredible shuffling run off the right wing, along the goalline, until he was almost at Oblak’s left post.
With four minutes left there was another delicious sliding pass for De Bruyne, whose cross was cleared. Back in the City half, meanwhile, Ederson was knitting a cardigan.
And that, until April 13 at least, was that. Naturally there are all sorts of tangential questions to come out of this game. Can City get their breath back in time for Liverpool this Sunday? Will one goal be enough in Madrid? And is it reasonable to expect the Spanish champions to play with a little more ambition in the biggest game of their season? For now, though, it is City – and the brilliant, transformative Foden – who have posed the thorniest question of all.
