As the dust settled on a high-quality tussle between Manchester City and Real Madrid, with the assembled Amazon pundits holding a wake for City’s season, one thought crossed our minds.
City had asked for it.
Not because the Premier League champions had thrown away another lead late on, allowing a slender 2-1 advantage to become a mountainous 3-2 deficit before next week’s return match in Spain.
Not Pep Guardiola, for discovering that John Stones was the solution to his Rodri-sized hole in midfield before withdrawing him and handing the initiative to Madrid.
Not even Rico Lewis, a promising young player whose current limitations have been exposed during City’s GMT-wobbles and was ragdolled by Vinicius Jr.
No, it was the City fans who were to blame for their side’s demise.
By unfurling their pre-match tifo taunting Vinicius Junior over Rodri’s capture of the Ballon d’Or – “Stop crying your heart out,” it crowed – City fans tempted the gods in ways they’d never have dared in their previous guise as loveable losers.
Inevitably, the effect on Vinicius was akin to a bull taking offence at a red rag. So much so you had to double-check check the game wasn’t being staged at Las Ventas, Madrid’s largest bullring.
The forward was excellent all night, producing a performance of imagination and flair that underlined his status as one of the world’s best footballers.
Pulling the City defence apart like a tear-and-share brioche with his running, Vinicius encapsulated the embrace of individualism that has manager Carlo Ancelotti in a league of his own.
Setting aside his assist for Jude Bellingham’s winner and Man of the Match award, one jaw-dropping moment left millions of viewers needing emergency oxygen.
Allowing the ball to run before sending Josko Gvardiol for a Wigan kebab with the filthiest of nutmegs, the Brazilian quickly found himself surrounded by four City defenders.
No matter; with an imperious flick of his boot, Vinicius waved a beautiful pass with the outside of the boot to release Kylian Mbappe.
As if unable to comprehend such elite aesthetics, Mbappe failed to crown the ball with the goal it deserved and fired straight at Ederson.
But it still summarised Vinicius’ impact on the game, standing head and shoulders above his peers for sheer impudence in an environment hardly lacking for imagination.
“I saw the banner,” Vinicius Jr told Movistar after the game.
“Whenever the opposing fans do things like that they give me more strength to have a great game and here I have done it.”
This was the fourth successive season – and the fifth in six – that the two teams have met in the knockout stages of the tournament.
Madrid won on penalties when the pair faced off in the quarter-finals last year and Carlo Ancelotti’s side went on to win their 15th title.
“They know our history, everything we do in this competition,” Vinicius Jr added.
“It is the fifth time we come here, it is always very cold, but this time we have won and we have to continue this.”
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 they were lured into a false sense of security by Vinicius’ indifferent form; since his infamous Ballon d’Or vow, the Madrid star has scored fewer league goals than Scott McTominay or Che Adams.
Alongside growing rumours his club team-mates are tiring of his shtick, there’s a sense that Vinicius has become something of a meme this season.
Talented? Yes, but high maintenance and slightly overrated too.
His swashbuckling display at the Etihad should banish these erroneous opinions to the gutter where they belong.
And perhaps City fans, with increasingly little to crow about as their ageing team stares European elimination in the face, will think twice before baiting one of the world’s top athletes in the future.