Foden shines on big stage but defiant Real Madrid keep crazy tie alive

With a quarter of an hour gone at the Etihad Stadium, on a night when this entire lighted stage seemed to ripple and shudder, Phil Foden did something lovely. Haring off in pursuit of a high, lost, floated pass destined for the bleachers, Foden scampered on, feet battering the turf, calibrating angles and arc, and pulled that floated pass out of the sky like a man charming down the moon with a stick.

His first touch cushioned it, his second fizzed it the through the middle of the sea of lost souls previously known as the Real Madrid defence. A muddle of flailing limbs almost bundled a third City goal into their own net. At which point this tie looked done, Real Madrid looked done, skewered, Foden in the middle of his own brilliant, decisive little patch of light.

Related: Manchester City edge Real Madrid in 4-3 thriller but Benzema keeps tie alive

What exactly happened here? Elite football is, we’re told, a matter of fine details. This is a battle for space. Elite football is a suffocation. It tends towards perfection, towards the elimination of variables And then, it seems, there’s this.

Just over an hour later on the same side of the pitch, Karim Benzema paused, walked up to the penalty spot and sent the ball once again up into that soft Manchester air, completing another gentle arc over the prone form of Ederson.

Benzema’s second goal had pulled the score – let’s just get this right – back to 4-3. And in the padded seats in front of the press box the Madrid contingent leapt up and roared and punched the air, not so much celebrating as laughing, peacocking, flushed with a kind of affirmation. Yes, we are Real Madrid. This is us. This is how we do this thing.

City will be happy, but also wildly frustrated to lead this