In the hours before the match, pockets of fans killed time by taking a stroll along the Rochdale Canal. From Castlefield Basin in the centre of Manchester, out through regenerated suburbs like Ancoats and New Islington, past the red-brick mills, the warehouses and the factory chimneys that once made the city the centre of the Industrial Revolution and the centre of a new world, it is a walk through Manchester’s history.
The Etihad Stadium lies a little to the east of the canal and on Wednesday night, it staged a revolution for a new age, a revolution that is putting Manchester back at the centre of the football world, a state-owned revolution, an Abu Dhabi revolution, that is sweeping away the old order.