We have seen great drama at this stadium before. When Manchester City beat QPR to clinch their first Premier League title in 2012, we went home and told everyone we had just witnessed the most dramatic end to a game of football between two English teams that we would ever see. A box had been ticked, or so it seemed.
Do we now have to rethink that? Maybe we do, even if this one was ultimately decided by a look at television replays.
It was VAR that brought Pep Guardiola to his knees at the end and that will never be quite the same as the simple sight of a ball hitting the back of the net. It was unthinkably dramatic all the same, though, and it will perhaps take some time for City and their supporters to fully accept that another Champions League campaign has ended short of fulfilment.
Tottenham’s Champions League victory over Manchester City delivered a dramatic finale
A look at the wider picture tells us that this was a great night for English football that formed the centre piece of a great week for the Champions League.
Momentarily we should pause and think of Ajax. Last month they had the eyes of Europe on them after their magnificent win at Real Madrid. As it turned out, they were in the spotlight for just 24 hours as Manchester United won dramatically at PSG the very next night.
Now it has happened again, their stunning win at Juventus overshadowed by this breath-taking night of punch and counter punch in east Manchester.
Not that the famous Dutch club will care. They have another shot at glory in a semi-final that we now know will be played against Tottenham.
Ajax’s famous win over Juventus was overshadowed by Tottenham’s European heroics
European football’s stellar competition has been accused of being a closed shop in recent years, dominated by the same faces. Barcelona remain this time but with Liverpool completing the last quartet standing, it is a wide open competition and that is exactly what UEFA’s blue riband club tournament really needs.
This game at the Etihad was simply a game fitting for its time, a time when standards of entertainment and glamour in the Premier League have never been higher. The next time we wonder just why TV companies across the world are willing to pay such vast sums to cover our game, we will look back at this for our answer. This was a contest played under a European banner but it was English fare in character, feel and substance.
It was a silly game, a playground game. It was a game characterised and decided by mistakes, despite the quality of some of the actual goal scoring. Neither Pep Guardiola or Mauricio Pochettino send their teams out to play anything like this. They are both clever, experienced coaches and this is not what they see when they close their eyes at night.
Nevertheless, it was beautiful in its own way. The ebb and flow and unpredictability was hypnotic and anybody who says the two VAR interventions didn’t make it even more compelling is probably not telling the truth.
The bald truth, a little strangely, is that Tottenham didn’t actually play that well. They were much better in the first leg yet only scored once. Sometimes that is just how sport works.
Neither Pep Guardiola or Mauricio Pochettino send their teams out to play anything like this
Here they scored three times on the back of City mistakes. If that sounds ungenerous then it is not meant to be. Tottenham deserve their place in the last four for their guts in managing to stay in this tie and, we should remember, the way they fought their way back in to the group stages after early defeats to Inter and Barcelona.
But, no, they still didn’t play particularly like they can here. For too long Tottenham chased the game. At no stage did they ever gain control of the midfield area, something not helped by the absence of injured Eric Dier and the first half problem suffered by Moussa Sissoko.
City swarmed all over their opponents at times. Kevin De Bruyne was the game’s best player by a distance. The Belgian is suddenly back to his imperious best. Raheem Sterling was also outstanding.
Belgian Kevin De Bruyne grabbed three assists and was the game’s outstanding player
Had City been more secure at the back they would have won easily. But that’s rather like saying that a horse would win a race if it ran faster. The fact is that City were indeed sloppy in defence and Tottenham had enough quality in those areas to punish them.
What this does to City now will be interesting to observe. They still have a title race to contest and they will be a very strong team indeed not to carry some of this disappointment in to another meeting with Tottenham here on Saturday, this time in the Premier League.
As for Spurs, they now have a puncher’s chance of winning the Champions League and that is the wonderful thing about knockout football. Pochettino has said this season that winning a trophy does not matter as much to him as people may think. He may now change his mind.
At the end of an unforgettable evening, Tottenham had achieved something quite special and this is a game of football that all but the City fans among us should take time to sit down and watch one more time on TV.
Whoever or whatever you follow, the beauty of sport is sometimes to be found in its chaos.