Barney Ronay: Brilliant City seemed to end up playing someone else’s game

Manchester City could have sent the visitors packing in the first hour but Karim Benzema’s Panenka sets up Bernabéu return

Manchester City's Phil Foden celebrates scoring their side's third goal of the game during the UEFA Champions League Semi Final, First Leg, at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Picture: Martin Rickett/PA Wire. 

With a quarter of an hour gone at the Etihad Stadium, on a night when this entire lighted stage seemed to ripple and shudder, Phil Foden did something lovely. Haring off in pursuit of a high, lost, floated pass destined for the bleachers, Foden scampered on, feet battering the turf, calibrating angles and arc, and pulled that floated pass out of the sky like a man charming down the moon with a stick.

His first touch cushioned it, his second fizzed it the through the middle of the sea of lost souls previously known as the Real Madrid defence. A muddle of flailing limbs almost bundled a third City goal into their own net. At which point this tie looked done, Real Madrid looked done, skewered, Foden in the middle of his own brilliant, decisive little patch of light.