What happened last night was disgraceful but it wasn't at all surprising. I don't know whether it's years of frustration at the sense of entitlement and envy at the obvious success of their cross city rivals but if anything is in the DNA of a football club, it seems to be negativity, cynicism and brutal violence in the DNA of this Atletico club. After the first leg I had the uneasy feeling that we had seen nothing like the full repertoire of dark arts - time wasting, arguing and fouling - from our opponents. Certainly the time wasting had been nowhere near as bad as at OT. It was the almost sadistic leer on Savic's face in the post match interview at the Etihad, as he explained that the second leg would be very different that I wondered what we would be in for - and last night he, in person, showed what he meant, with a little help from his friends.
What was just as depressing was that the authorities seem to refuse to accept that this happens, despite 10 years of Simeone and experience of that club going back at least to 1974 that we know of. How long was it before Phil was treated to a mid-air body check with elbow in the head embellishment? A sending off in either code of rugby. And what we learned from it was that the referee had no idea that these were Atletico's deliberate, rehearsed tactics. Almost immediately it became clear that we did not have a referee who "wanted to let the game flow" but rather an official who didn't have the balls to deal with organised thuggery. Every time we seemed likely to string three passes together a "heavy tackle" broke it up, possession changed hands and the ref "let the game flow". But not when Atleti were in possession. And so the game did anything but flow. It was interrupted constantly and it's no wonder Madrid had so many more attacks in the second half. Fortunately we also learned as we progressed towards the 103rd minute of play, that City had an iron self-discipline and that Phil Foden, in addition to his boundless skill, has a ton of guts. We were all proud of our lads last night, but now we have to count the possible cost.