Real Madrid are European champions, yet in that first half at the Etihad on Wednesday, they were outclassed to an almost incomprehensible degree. Every Manchester City outfielder bar Rúben Dias had a shot; Madrid managed one in total. So discombobulating was the ferocity of City’s press that Madrid completed only 13 passes in the first 15 minutes. It was 2-0 at half-time and could have been five. City played with such pace and precision – against a European grandee – that the only appropriate response was awe.
Yet in mid-January, as City lost to Manchester United at Old Trafford, it seemed reasonable to suggest that this was not one of Pep Guardiola’s better sides, that with United rising City could no longer take supremacy for granted in Manchester. Four months on, with only United and Internazionale standing between City and the second treble in English football history – the 10th anywhere in Europe – such prognostications look a little silly.
