Manchester City star Jack Grealish could have fuelled unsavoury scenes between his teammates and the Atletico Madrid team by appearing to call Stefan Savic a "c***".
The two squads clashed during the dying embers of the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie, with City winning 1-0 on aggregate and progressing into the semi-finals. Pep Guardiola will certainly be proud of their two professional displays against Atletico’s incredibly defensive set-up.
And the Spanish boss will certainly take pride in how the vast majority of the team kept their cool when their La Liga opponents wanted to mark their exit from the competition with a brawl. Though Grealish could have added fuel to the fire from the sidelines as he was captured appearing to insult hot-headed Savic just as the unsavoury scenes began to break out.
Cameras caught Grealish, who was warming up at the time, having a ‘word’ with the Montenegro defender after he had attempted to drag Phil Foden to his feet after the England international was fouled - and eagle-eyed fans spotted that Grealish had some unsavoury words for his rival.
Despite his controversial actions, Rio Ferdinand does not think that the X-rated insult justified the reaction, telling BT Sport: “What Jack’s said there, what we can’t say here live on air, gets said about nine times out of 10 by a player on the pitch at some point most games.
“There’s verbals that go on and you have a little bit of back and forth with people. It shouldn’t result in that. Savic will look back on that and think it’s not his finest moment.” Savic was then seen pulling Grealish’s hair in a feud before being caught landing a headbutt on Raheem Sterling – though the Atletico defender somehow only received a yellow card for his antics.
The confrontation between the two clubs then continued after the full-time whistle and for over 15 minutes in the tunnel, with substitutes from both squads coming to blows. Darren Fletcher then revealed that Grealish and Savic also met again in the tunnel of the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano in which police raced across to split up the pair.
Darren Fletcher explained: “Grealish was walking down the tunnel and Stefan Savic caught up with him. All of a sudden there was a commotion at the mouth of the tunnel and people just ran to that area. The two players disappeared from my view but very quickly after four police officers came charging to that area as well. I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened, but Savic was involved again. Grealish was trying to leave the field and it was another very unsavoury incident here. Symptomatic of what we’ve seen over the last 15 minutes.”
It remains to be seen whether either side, namely Atletico, faces any repercussions for their actions from UEFA as their conduct is something that the organisation will want to stamp out as quickly as possible. City will take on Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the competition as they bid to finally get their hands on the coveted European trophy. Liverpool take on Villarreal in the other semi-final.
