THIS WAS IT then.
The apotheosis; the final click in the lock.
This was the night when Manchester City’s gilded parts coalesced: the obsessive designs of their genius coach, the technical perfection of their stable of fabulous players, the sluicing bank notes of their impossibly rich owners.
This was the mapping of state-backed football’s destination point; if you are richer than God but don’t make decisions like you think you’re smarter than him, this awesome, belligerent beauty is what you get.
There is another state-backed projects vying for this trophy, but Qatar’s PSG have been constantly undermined by their own, cautionary decadence.
City are not similarly afflicted. They have spent their absurd wealth well. It’s like Arsene Wenger said back in 2017. His Invincibles had ideas but no petrol, whereas City have both. Nobody can live with this.
The Premier League’s 115 charges have cast a pall over the Premier League season but it clearly doesn’t hang over the Ethiad Stadium. If it did tonight, City might have blown it away into the night sky, like they did Real Madrid.
Tonight was City’s signature performance under Pep Guardiola. This will forever be their reference point. As a flex of utter dominance on Europe’s grandest stage, tonight’s only counterpart is Guardiola’s Barcelona in the 2011 Champions League final.
It was overwhelming, breathtaking. 4-0 flattered Real Madrid.
City laced their technical excellence with a kind of feral thirst, bringing a level of physicality to the game that Real Madrid’s creaking limbs couldn’t deal with. Carlo Ancelotti’s decision to pick Toni Kroos in midfield rather than Aurelien Tchouameni was at once baffling and immaterial: Tchouameni’s superior energy would only have told in the sense he would given shadows a more decent chasing.
City swarmed over Madrid from the off, wreathing and then tightening their tendrils around Madrid’s diminished champions, refusing to let go. The game was still 0-0 when Luka Modric was hemmed in at the touchline by several City players and was forced to hit the ejector button by backheeling the ball out of play. He turned around, cast a plaintive look downfield and shrugged his shoulders.
What am I meant to do?
City should have been 2-0 up by that point, with a pair of magnificent saves by Thibault Courtois repelling Erling Haaland’s headers. The goal followed shortly after, however, Bernardo Silva slipping off the back of Toni Kroos and then smashing the ball beyond Courtois.
Madrid then briefly got out of their penalty area on parole and Kroos flew the ball against crossbar, but City killed the game shortly afterwards.
Karim Benzema’s physical decline has been stark: he was miles away from a pass intended for him into the centre circle, so City swept upfield and Bernardo nonchalantly nodded a rebounded shot into the top corner.
City’s absurd intensity wasn’t maintained into the second-half, but nor did they offer Madrid any hope. The final tool added to City’s arsenal’s this year has been the strength of the counter-punch they have in Haaland, so they decided to sit off and use it. Only the combination of another sprawling Courtois save and the crossbar stopped him from scoring. City did add another two goals: Militao clumsily diverted Akanji’s header into the net, and Julian Alvarez – the final piece in Argentina’s World Cup-winning jigsaw yet an infrequent sub for City – tucked home Phil Foden’s divine pass with his very first touch.
Either would start for any other team in the competition, but City have the depth to put them on the bench and Guardiola the man-management skills not to allow them become disenchanted.
Inter Milan await in the final in Istanbul, but they stand no chance in the way of this.
Nobody does.
The Treble, that quixotic, unfathomable achievement that has been to now the patent of Manchester United, will soon be a property shared with Manchester City.
The difference is City’s will not be the stuff of wild, improbable epic, but instead the thing that appears on the other side of the equals sign.
When the input has on this scale, the output will eventually follow.
Manchester City’s ultimate result is weeks away.