Following a narrow scoreline in the first leg of the UCL Quarter-Finals, the tie was still up for grabs for both Man City and Atletico Madrid in the second leg on Wednesday.
The English side led 1-0 on aggregate after Kevin De Bruyne sent them ahead during the first leg. With Atletico opting to park the bus in the first leg, even the one-goal advantage was treasured by the Citizens, who were visibly frustrated with the lack of space to operate due to the compact shape of the Simeone’s men.
Up until the halfway point in the second half at the Wanda Metropolitano, it was a similar story as City continued to dominate the ball, with Ilkay Gundogan having the best chance for City to kill the tie which was saved by Jan Oblak. But from the 60th minute, Atleti came alive as they ditched their low block formation and began pressing higher up the pitch. It was almost a total role reversal where City now had to defend deep after Rodrigo de Paul and Angel Correa had clean chances to score but were denied by Ederson.
Simeone’s men were truly unlucky to not be level on aggregate on the night after even a hopeful penalty shout went unnoticed by VAR and these frustrations were beginning to boil over towards the end of the game.
In the 89th minute, Phil Foden was brought down by Felipe in a risky challenge next to the City touchline and Stefan Savic rushed over to the Englishman to pick him up and get on with the game. But Foden was in no mood to do so and remained on the floor in an attempt to waste time, which led to a group melee between City and Atletico players.
The close of the first leg ended with an altercation between the two sets of teams after Atleti players repeatedly fouled Jack Grealish after he came off the bench. The Englishman’s hair was specifically under attack as a few Atleti players such as Savic were spotted yanking his blonde hair set with a hairband.
As the fight erupted once again in the second leg with Savic headbutting Raheem Sterling and Šime Vrsaljko attempting to take on City players in the tunnel, Jack Grealish’s hair was once again under attack from the Spanish side.
Although the ex-Villa man remained a substitute throughout the game, he quickly became involved in the melee as he was warming up right next to Foden who had been fouled by Felipe. Grealish was spotted having strong words with Savic who was already arguing with John Stones. But as soon as Grealish walked over to him, Savic quickly responded by once again pulling the Englishman’s hair.
Grealish was not one bit pleased as he immediately pulled away from Savic to prevent further damage to his hair. The City forward also took to Instagram following the end of the game where he reposted a picture of Atletico players hunting after his hair.
Despite being targeted by Atletico during both the legs, Grealish responded in the best way possible and took light of the situation as he posted a Man Getting Haircut emoji, thus indicating that he probably needs a haircut to avoid such trouble in future..
Having finally seen off Atletico over two legs, Grealish will now have some respite as he would not be facing them anytime soon. However, he and City would be required to make a trip back to the Spanish capital once again as the English side have a mouth-watering Semi-Final clash coming up against Real Madrid.
