It might not have been quite the explosive classic BT Sport would have wished for ahead of it becoming TNT Sports next month, but the channel’s Champions League swansong had at least featured “the final chapter” in “the greatest story in club history”, as commentator Darren Fletcher bellowed when the final whistle sounded.
Now, there might be some contrarians out there who would dispute Fletcher’s claim that Manchester City’s feat is the greatest story in club history, an assertion that made it seem a little like, say, Accrington Stanley had just done the treble rather than Abu Dhabi.
But you’d hardly have expected him to say “a decent win by City tonight, but it’s overshadowed by those 115 breaches of financial fair play rules”.
It was, BT decided, important just to focus on the football, and be gracious too about City emulating United’s 1999 feat – as United’s fourth choice left-back Brandon Williams was after the game on Instatwit, or somewhere, saying: “Nobody wants sloppy seconds.”
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Williams was also critical of Rio Ferdinand, incidentally, for congratulating City. “Immortal, statues galore,” Ferdinand declared, “if you could bottle this feeling and sit it on the shelves of a supermarket, the likes of Amazon…” His voice trailed away, he wasn’t quite sure where he was going.
Now, while the game was more competitive than most might have forecast, the night’s most titanic tussle was actually between Jake Humphrey and Mario Balotelli. This was Humphrey’s final BT appearance and Balotelli’s punditry debut, so their worlds would only collide for one night – unless they meet on Humphrey’s High Performance podcast, which is unlikely after Saturday.
Balotelli was hired for the evening because he had played for both City and Inter Milan, but BT hadn’t foreseen that he would, quite literally, opt to remain neutral, when they do like their pundits to be rabidly partisan.
He had appeared on BT earlier in the day as part of their interminable build-up, Josh Denzel asking him who he thought would prevail.
Balotelli: “I hope one of the two wins.”
Denzel: “Thanks Mario.”
Then it was Humphrey’s turn. “Who’s going to do it?” he asked.
“No comment,” Balotelli said. “Hold on,” said Humphrey, “we paid thousands of pounds for this guy and his final word is ‘no comment’?” Balotelli wasn’t budging, although that might have been because he couldn’t actually move due to the weight of his enormous earrings.
Ferdinand was much more obliging.
Humphrey: “We don’t want to talk it up, but... IT JUST FEELS LIKE CITY’S TIME!!!!”
Ferdinand: “I fink so, yeah.”
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Any way, let’s get this over with: City won, Rodri getting the only goal of the game.
“And I was playing sh*t to be honest,” he told the panel. Humphrey: “Apologies for the language.”
And when Rodri spotted Sergio Aguero: “You’re a f***ing legend!” Humphrey: “Apologies for the language.” And then Pep Guardiola arrived: “This f***ing trophy is so difficult to win.” Humphrey: “Apologies for the language.” The poor lad was worn out.
There was, though, a touching moment when Kyle Walker, whose parents were in the crowd, reflected on his journey from the days he was growing up in Sheffield. “I remember my Mum didn’t have a pound for the ice-cream van, so to be experiencing this with her, God bless her, I’m just so thankful... I’m getting emotional, man,” Walker said.
Humphrey: “Beaaaaautiful.”
Ferdinand: “Let’s just take it up a notch – your drink of choice tonight and what’s the first track you’re gonna play when you get to the hotel?”
Humphrey couldn’t disguise his disappointment, any chance of the emotional exchange being expanded upon banjaxed.
Des Kelly, meanwhile, was asking Ilkay Gundogan to autograph his accreditation armband. Gundogan obliged, but his face said much the same as our own: “Huh?”
Back with the pitchside panel and Ferdinand was emoting about Guardiola – “He has teams painting pictures like we’ve never seen, Michelangelo, however you want to do it, like” – while the artist that is Balotelli was throwing glances at his watch. By now, BT had been on air for five hours, which isn’t much less time than Balotelli had on the pitch this season.
“Man of few words, but man of big impact,” Humphrey said to him. “Did you enjoy it?”
Balotelli had a think. “Yeah, it was... good. But my legs are tired,” he said.
If you could have bottled his feeling and sat it on the shelves of Amazon, the label would have read: “Can I go home now?”
