Terrace Talk Man City: No pizza in the tunnel but this rivalry is the real deal

Two great sides heaving and puffing for all their worth could not be separated.

Sun, 10 Apr, 2022 - 20:30

Simon Curtis

It could have been Friedrich Nietzsche and not Diego Simeone, who was in charge of Atletico Madrid’s nihilist approach to football in Manchester in midweek. After playing a team that gathered a grand total of zero shots, zero goal attempts and zero corners, as well as zero points (an appropriate prize for their night’s work), City’s weekend legs were asked to match those of a Liverpool side who would surely be much more prepared to come out and give them a game.

Nietzsche was not just a man interested in the dark voids in life, but also passed many a merry hour in what he coyly named the quest for truth. In this world of Trumps, Johnsons and Peskovs, that pursuit appears to remain something of a challenge to some who walk amongst us. In football too, the week had been crammed with folk prepared to deny that Manchester City versus Liverpool now represents the best of us.

Much talk bandied about of the New Galacticos, a northern English version of Real v Barcelona, but with gravy on the patatas bravas instead of delicately spicy mayonnaise and a tub of mushy peas instead of gazpacho. Delicately spicy, we were told, was how it was between these two sides. Too delicate to be a proper rivalry. The managers were too polite to each other. There was no Roy Keane-Patrick Vieira feud, no pizza-flinging in the tunnel for it to deliver any proper tension.

Here, though, was the biggest game in football between possibly the best two sides on the planet at the moment. Rivalry or not, this is the truth of the matter right now.

City’s first-half showing illuminated this point adequately enough. Full of invention and forceful running, squeezing mistakes out of a nervous-looking visiting defence, City netted two and missed more. Perhaps referee Anthony Taylor, trying his utmost to belie the Mancunian parentage that had Liverpool fans bleating all week, should not have blown his whistle for half-time. For, in doing so, he put a halt to City’s impressive invention. Taylor would later also turn down the opportunity to take action on Thiago’s second bookable offence, blighted on this occasion by those same thoughts of what had been said about him all week.

City’s early surge was undeniable. De Bruyne’s shot squeezed in off Matip’s heel for the start that Guardiola must have sat up in bed thinking about all night. Even earlier, Sterling had provided evidence of his usual brain freeze in one-on-ones with the goalkeeper. He was to disprove this brilliantly in a second opportunity in the second half, slotting past the Brazilian as coolly as you like only to be ruled out by the slimmest of VAR margins.

At the other end, Ederson’s antics kept alive the chance that all would not end well. Insisting on dwelling on the ball as long as possible, the Brazilian appeared to stub his toe and, even then, giving himself another second or two to think about the meaning of life, he swiped a gentle clearance millimetres away from Jota’s diving boot. Palpitations all round, although the goalkeeper looked nonplussed enough.

City’s chances kept coming. After a sluggish start to the second half, City’s momentum should still have sealed this game, despite the intensity falling away slightly. De Bruyne, scything through midfield time and again and Foden, growing in stature as the ball came his way more often, led the charge against a wooden-legged Fabinho.

By the end, tired limbs were beginning to accept the draw that would keep City a point ahead. Two sterling performances against their rivals this season had delivered just two points, as Mahrez skipped through onto yet another pass from the Belgian. The substitute steadied himself and dinked the ball over the bar to claim a dubious double of last-minute winners against Liverpool that never were. The Algerian’s penalty miss at Anfield in 2018 came in the 85th minute. His scooped mishap here was a full eight minutes later.

On these tiny margins whole seasons balance. Two great sides heaving and puffing for all their worth could not be separated. Nietzsche himself, embroiled in a rivalry of his own with the composer Richard Wagner, called him out for the dangers of his “endless melody”, a decent enough moniker for the pas de deux being trotted out each time these two august sides meet in a rivalry that continues to grow.