It was fraught, it was suffocating, it was full-blooded – entirely as billed – and it blew up in the 89th minute with a mass melee between the players of both Atlético Madrid and Manchester City, including plenty of substitutes.
The spark had come when the Atlético defender Felipe, already on a booking for having cleaned out Phil Foden in the early going, slid into him by the sideline before seeming to kick him. With Foden down, all hell broke loose, another Atlético defender, Stefan Savic, trying to lift him to his feet and being shooed away by Oleksandr Zinchenko, who was an unused City substitute, as everybody converged.
