For well over 80 minutes, he had blundered down blind alleys, struggled to control simple balls, misplaced routine passes.
There had not been a huge amount going on in the closing-down department, either. Let’s face it, had Pep Guardiola lit up Erling Haaland’s number when making a triple substitution in the aftermath of Jude Bellingham ’s opener, few inside the Etihad Stadium - apart from taunting Borussia Dortmund fans - would have complained.
But Guardiola knows, like we all do, that the history of the game’s finest strikers shows one great truth and proves one great cliche… It only takes a moment for them to turn a game.
That moment here, that moment that won the match for Manchester City, came when Haaland read the beautiful outside-of-the-boot pass from Joao Cancelo and met it with a finish that was half kung fu kick, half brilliant volley. It was familiar but it was thrilling, it was yet another stunning reminder of what Haaland is all about.
This was an identikit Haaland winner, an identikit Haaland goal that gave City a victory that looked beyond them for long periods of this game. This is what he was bought for.
Against his old club, it was story-book stuff, but the more subtle points of this game will not be lost on Guardiola. For an hour, City were dreadful in a way that City rarely are. On three occasions in a truly tedious first half, Jack Grealish cut inside his first opponent only to find his second had anticipated the move and was able to comfortably block the shot.
In a way, that summed up Grealish’s City career so far and summed up City’s performance prior to Jude Bellingham’s clever headed opener not long before the hour mark. What happened in the wake of Bellingham’s cute conversion of a driven Macro Reus cross was why City are favourites for domestic and European honours.
Guardiola brought on Phil Foden, Julian Alvarez and Bernardo Silva and the dynamic of City’s display changed for the better. OK, they were not directly involved in either of the two goals but they were inventive, incisive and creative in a way the players they had replaced (including Grealish) were not.
But although those three were key in wearing Dortmund down, no-one could have predicted the source of the equaliser ten minutes from time. Let’s put it this way, it was one of Kevin de Bruyne’s more unlikely assists - a short pass to John Stones, who bulleted home a right-footer from the edge of the penalty area.
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Alexander Meyer, in the Dortmund goal, might have done better but it was certainly travelling. And Meyer’s misery was complete when Cancelo persuaded his pass to drift beyond the Dortmund back-line and Haaland leapt in that trademark fashion of his to finish with what looked like the wrong foot, his left.
For some reason, Guardiola got into trouble with the referee after the final whistle but that will not matter. Pep made the right changes at the right time and kept faith with his phenomenon upfront. And as he will do many times over, Erling Haaland repaid him.
