It felt as if the occasion of Pep Guardiola's 1000th match in charge of a football club demanded a special tribute and, true to all the glories that this stadium has seen during his gilded trophy-laden time at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City delivered one for him.
I am not referring here to the video they played on the big screens before the game that flitted through the highlight reel of the beauty of his Barcelona sides and the wondrous season of City's Treble in 2022-23.
'There's a bravery to them,' Guardiola said in accompaniment to that video as he talked about the Barcelona teams he studied when he was growing up.