If you are going to unfurl a banner mocking one of the game’s supreme athletes with a few craftily chosen Oasis lyrics, you had better be supremely confident of having the final say. But in the end, Manchester City supporters’ tifo taunting Vinicius Junior over Rodri’s capture of the Ballon d’Or – “Stop crying your heart out,” it crowed – merely highlighted the folly of hubris.
For 90 minutes later, the object of their derision became the orchestrator of their heartbreak, using his electrifying pace to steal the ball away from Rico Lewis and lay it on a platter for Jude Bellingham to finish. A 3-2 deficit: it was a calamitous scoreline for City to absorb, after they had led with four minutes left, and it prompted a haunted Pep Guardiola to sink back into his chair with a silent scream.
He will agonise, of course, over his own choices. Was it wise to trust a defender with such conspicuous limitations as Lewis to shackle an irresistible force like Vinicius? Did he truly have to bring on the declining Ilkay Gundogan, a liability of late, when trying and ultimately failing to resist a second-half onslaught? Perhaps the gravest misjudgment, though, was committed by the home fans, with their targeting of Real Madrid’s brilliant Brazilian only strengthening his resolve to deliver the final flourish.
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Even Carlo Ancelotti acknowledged, with wry satisfaction, that the stunt had backfired. “It has been a huge source of motivation for him,” he said. “Today he has been very dangerous at all times.” Quite how anybody in the City fanbase calculated that the banner would be a wise move, given their fragilities this season, is anybody’s guess. Perhaps, with their dominance of old stripped away, they simply craved a reason to gloat.
Rodri certainly liked it, capturing a photograph from the sidelines for posterity. The problem was that Vinicius appeared to like it, too, channelling his feelings about such effrontery into a man-of-the-match performance.
“I saw the banner from the City fans, and it motivated me even more,” he reflected. “Whenever rival fans do things, it gives me more strength to play a great game.” It is extraordinary, in retrospect, that such antics were ever contemplated. Here are a side creaking, wobbling, unsure of themselves and of their capacity to rediscover their all-conquering pomp.
So why would supporters give someone who has already scored 17 times this season an open goal? City came into this match having thrown away four different leads in all competitions. Make that five after this latest implosion, with Vinicius engineering the most delicious riposte for Real.
Discretion is the better part of valour
The 15-time champions’ reputation for late comebacks is richly merited. City can bitterly attest to it, having had a place in the 2022 Champions League final wrested away at the death by Rodrygo. As such, they needed to tread carefully for this reunion. No self-inflicted wounds, no psychological fillips to the opposition.
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And certainly no enormous banner pouring scorn for Real’s most dangerous player. Those who designed it might have felt they were within their rights, in light of Real’s memorable fit of pique in boycotting the Ballon d’Or ceremony en masse the moment they discovered that Vinicius had lost to Rodri.
But that was last October – another lifetime for City, before all the shocking unravellings brought them crashing down to earth. Back then, they had the form to back up their vaingloriousness. But now? Discretion, surely, would have been the better part of valour.
A chastened Guardiola insisted that he had never seen the banner: a somewhat dubious claim, in that it measured several thousand square feet. Then again, he was in no mood to reach for excuses. The nightmare was sufficiently all-engulfing for him not to risk antagonising his own fans. City, against all odds, had this match in their grasp, weathering a period of remorseless second-half pressure to carve out the unlikeliest of leads, courtesy of two Erling Haaland goals that confounded his four previous blanks against Real. But then, in increasingly time-honoured fashion, they went to pieces.
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Yes, you could emphasise Real’s inexhaustible spirit, their mastery of timing these Champions League turnarounds. But on this occasion City were authors of their own demise, with Ederson parrying a Vinicius shot straight to the feet of Brahim Díaz, who did not need a second invitation to equalise. An ominous cloud descended on the Etihad, with rapturous relief morphing at a stroke into weary fatalism. They had read this script before, not least against Paris St Germain three weeks earlier, and sure enough a team as wily as Ancelotti’s Real were primed to capitalise.
They owed it all to the irrepressible Vinicius, who responded to the riling by his hosts in the most brutal fashion possible. “They know our history, everything we do in this competition,” he smiled. “It is the fifth time we have come here – it is always very cold – but this time we have won and we have to continue this.” A continuation should scarcely be beyond them, with Real’s traditional supremacy at the Bernabeu. A draw in Madrid in seven days’ time will guarantee them seamless progress towards the trophy they have come to call their own. For City, a far grislier reckoning awaits, with their Vinicius-baiting fans struggling on this evidence to understand the difference between confidence and conceit.
