Phil Foden avoided the attention of three red and white shirts and slotted the perfect ball through to Kevin De Bruyne. Free at last, he pushed it past the advancing Jan Oblak, into the net. It was not much, but enough. Manchester City take a lead to Madrid next week. Their hosts must, at some point, shed their instincts and attack.
‘The good ends happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means,’ says Oscar Wilde’s Miss Prism. Football, not so much. If Atletico Madrid are the Champions League bad guys – negative, defensive, often devious – rather a lot goes their way.