The Warm-Up: Holy Roman hellfire and Etihad emptiness

“They’re more than capable of scoring three goals, but keeping a clean sheet? You have to imagine they’ll ship at least one against such a ruthless attack. And then they’ll need five to guarantee progress. It’s a tough ask, but if anyone can do it…”

Yep, Roma can.

A night that started with starry-eyed Pep Guardiola disciples and fatalistic Liverpool fans doing survivor maths did indeed produce a comeback drama for the ages – only it came not in Manchester but in the Italian capital, where Eusebio Di Francesco’s underdogs (heck, underhamsters after the first leg) did the unthinkable and knocked Barcelona out of the Champions League.

The Giallorossi, recall, lost 4-1 at the Camp Nou, scoring two own goals. And even though that scoreline was an unfair reflection of their performance, few gave them a snowball’s chance in hell of reversing the deficit.

But reverse the deficit they did. Edin Dzeko scored early to breathe belief into the side, before Daniele De Rossi (a scorer at the wrong end last week) converted from the penalty spot just before the hour mark.

Still, Barça had a foot in the next round. But then along came Kostas Manolas, Greek god in a Roman amphitheatre (and, brilliantly, the other own-goaler in Catalonia), to send shockwaves through the continent. Roma are semi-finalists for the first time since 1984 and, whatever comes next, have written the story of the season.

For a brief moment, it looked as though Manchester City might also do something spectacular. When Gabriel Jesus stroked the Citizens into a third-minute lead, you could almost hear the Momentum Deities stirring above the cloud cover.

City piled forward, tails up, Guardiola’s nothing-to-lose 3-1-4-2 system pushing Liverpool ever deeper. There were penalty shouts (not given), missed chances and, just before the interval, a perfectly legitimate Leroy Sane goal ruled out for offside. Steve McManaman seemed confused by it, but no one else was.

Guardiola spent the second half in the stands, desperately whispering messages to go-betweens, after remonstrating with the referee (more on him later) at the interval, and cut a slightly helpless figure as Liverpool, somewhat inevitably, found the goal that killed the tie.

Sadio Mane broke through the lines and while Ederson was brave enough to claw the ball away, he was helpless to stop Mohamed Salah (who else?) clip the ball into the empty net. Roberto Firmino then added gloss late on, profiting from a Nicolas Otamendi slapstick act to stroke into the corner.

A huge feather in Jurgen Klopp’s hat, then, and another blow to City, whose fans will be wanting to tear the last eight days from their diaries and burn the pages in the nearest sink.

He was planning to leave Ipswich at the end of the season anyway, but Mick McCarthy decided to clock off four games early after last night’s win over Barnsley.

The former Republic of Ireland boss was seemingly angered by the reaction of the Portman Road crowd – portions of which have been on his back for years now – to a substitution he made in the second half, prompting him to say his goodbyes immediately after the final whistle.

“I won’t have to listen to that again: that’s my last game,” he told reporters in his post-match press conference. “I’m out of here.”

“Hi, is that Warner Bros? Look, you don’t know me, but I have a film idea I really think would work. It’s a buddy movie: think Blues Brothers meets Tango & Cash, but set in the Midlands. It’s about a prince and…”

This week in hindsight lolz: recalling the moment Barcelona’s media cheerleaders went Full Metal Hubris when the quarter-final draw was made. “A chocolate” is the literal translation, but “a gift” would be the equivalent headline in English.

And… nope, there doesn’t appear to be any smallprint relating to horses and mouths.

It’s probably Manolas, let’s be honest, but for the sake of variety, we head to the upper reaches of the Championship, where hair gel’s Jack Grealish channelled his inner Paul Scholes to down Cardiff.

That, in truth, was mainly good news for Fulham, who leapfrogged the Bluebirds (there’s a Mary Poppins song in that) into second place after a gritty win over Reading and are now 20 games unbeaten.

It’s one thing to make a few bad decisions. It’s another thing to officiate a football match in a way that suggests you skipped the entire ‘fouls’ chapter in the refereeing guidebook. And it’s yet another thing to fool around with the players in quiet moments of the game, pretending you somehow have equal billing with them, and that one of the biggest games of the season is actually all about you.

Oh, and don’t do this before all that, for heaven’s sake:

Not that this is a new thing. The Warm-Up dug this up from a knockout game involving City a couple of years ago:

Time for an all-too-rare trip to Commentary Corner, with two distinct (but similarly memorable) takes on last night’s scenes at the Stadio Olimpico.

A game like that will always get the juices flowing, but nobody’s juices flow hotter and clearer than Peter Drury’s, as he proved once again on BT Sport. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Drury sure constructed that shiny word palace pretty swiftly:

Somewhat less verbose but no less evocative was this effort from Italian commentator Carlo Zampa, who really does need to make sure his feelings come across a bit more in future broadcasts (or not):

Oh, so you’ve suddenly got a taste for European comebacks now, have you? Well, in the hopes of jinxing our way to another thriller tonight, let The Warm-Up state for the record that there is absolutely NO WAY that Sevilla are overturning Bayern Munich, and NO WAY Juventus are scoring at least three times against Real Madrid.

NO. WAY.