Scampering scoundrel Phil Foden beats Diego Simeone at his own game

And so it came to pass, with 92 minutes on the clock. A match that had simmered, all smouldering, corseted restraint, finally broke down into the nasty, snarky, theatrically overblown free‑for‑all that everyone at the Wanda Metropolitano always felt was on its way.

By the end there was talk of a fist fight involving at least two players and the sight of helmeted police sprinting for the tunnel. There was genuine bad blood on the pitch, words and pointed fingers. And above all the spectacle of Atlético’s players shaking their heads in utter confusion, lost in red mist that felt like someone else’s red mist, self‑Atléticoed, playing that horrible game from the other side.

In an excellent narrative twist it was, of all people, Phil Foden who sparked much of this. Yes, really: that Foden, City’s academy-reared flyweight, such an orderly, technical presence, but transformed here, in a match where he did little else of note, into a kind of nemesis, a banshee, a wildly infuriating figure capering about at a peppercorn rent inside the head of the great Diego Simeone. Who knows, this might even turn up being a defining Foden night, for all the right wrong reasons.

We know he can play, although here he was pushed to the fringes, moving constantly, never backing down, wearing his bandaged head like a trophy.

Instead he did something else; finding a way, not just to really, really, really annoy Atlético Madrid, but to help drag City over the line in a game they were desperate to get to the end of.

Best of all Foden completely spooked Simeone, who spent the final minutes of stoppage time wandering around clapping weirdly, nodding his head, smiling horribly, and looking, frankly, a little nuts.

It began with some defensive