For well over an hour, Kevin de Bruyne was a symbol of Manchester City ’s struggles - a frustrated figure fighting in vain to get out of Diego Simeone’s straitjacket.
But more often than not, it only needs a touch of pure class to undo even the most meticulous of defensive plans. And Phil Foden and De Bruyne provided a touch each to give City a narrow advantage, heading to Madrid next week. Foden had been on the field for just over a minute when he played in De Bruyne for the only goal of a game whose pattern of proceedings was entirely predictable.
You can have a grudging admiration for Simeone’s achievements and for his knack of grinding out results against elite opposition but it is pretty painful to witness. These guys waste time in the warm-up. Jan Oblak takes longer to take a goal-kick than he does to do Wordle.
But everyone is aware of the challenge they pose, no-one more so than Guardiola. His key message would have been the need for patience and City certainly had plenty of that for long periods of an attritional contest.
If anything, Guardiola was a little conservative, with Nathan Ake included as a left-back and not overly adventurous in the way that, say, Oleksandr Zinchenko might have been. In a first leg, though, Guardiola was sensitive to the counter and once or twice in a fairly tedious first half, Joao Felix flirted with an attacking move, only to find his team-mates were not particularly keen to follow suit.
And what Guardiola needed was one of his most creative operatives to be in top safe-cracking mood. But, before his goal, De Bruyne’s touch was just a touch clunky and an isolated Raheem Sterling often found himself isolated and facing a three-man defensive barrier.
There were a couple of faintly desperate pleas for penalties - one from Bernardo Silva, the other from De Bruyne - and a couple of pot-shots from range but, otherwise, it was a first quarter of a two-game tie that Atletico saw out with some degree of comfort, if not possession.
And there was always the chance that City would become a little frustrated and make the odd careless mistake. Sure enough, the second half was young when a mix-up between Ilkay Gundogan and Joao Cancelo gave Antoine Griezmann a 50-yard dash towards Ederson but the Frenchman ran out of gas.
It was a warning sign for City and it was no surprise when Marcos Llorente also had half an opportunity but chipped it straight at Ederson. Thankfully, as the game wore on, more errors crept in, leading to something almost verging on excitement. A De Bruyne set-piece hit brought out a decent stop from Oblak and Sterling hooked a chance wide after the Atletico defence had a rare, momentary lapse.
But the best chance fell to Aymeric Laporte, who had a free pop at a Riyad Mahrez corner but headed it over. That miss prompted Pep to ring the changes and they paid off immediately when one of his three changes, Foden, slid a short but fiendishly clever pass through to De Bruyne and he finished without breaking stride.
Guardiola threw a bottle skywards in celebration but he knows the hard work has only just begun.
