by With nine minutes remaining in this breathless 1-1 draw, a very complicated 1-1, a 1-1 final for the ages, Luis Díaz headed down the left hand touchline. This is a footballer who from the first minute to the end always looks like he’s running from a burning building, has no cruise control or ecological gear, is just always in Insanity Mode .
Díaz weaved inside Kyle Walker with a matadorial withdrawal, dodged Rodri, zipped out towards the six-yard box, forced a corner, then fell to the turf, muscles screaming with lactic acid, shouting at the crowd for standing in sitting, a man who at that moment basically couldn’t walk anymore, still out there trying to face the day.
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Díaz’s performance seemed to capture the tone and texture of this game, the constant collision between energy and control. Manchester City dominated the first half looking like a team from a more advanced sports galaxy, strolling about where space fits, equipped with advanced technology, a firmer grasp of logic, greater access to teleportation devices .
After the break it was Liverpool’s turn to apply more disruptive energy. In that period Díaz missed at least three open chances to score. He also never stopped, or settled, or seemed to be able to tear himself away from the shows.
In fact, no one stopped here at any point. And all this was a rare beauty. Elite sport and survival often get on your nerves with pain and fear. Football is often full of anger and rage. The most impressive thing here was how much the players enjoyed this game.
It felt like a kind of high, a reminder that a 1-1 draw over 90 minutes retains the ability to convey so much drama, so many energy-shifting moments. It could be its own hidden horizon facing the Prime Minister, forces being shifted from the stage, court dates looming, anti-gravity its own economic heft. Who knows how long this thing will last in this form? But it’s still a great sports league, still wandering through its own Hollywood golden age.
In the end it felt significant that Alexis McAllister was probably the most influential player on the pitch, if McAllister spent the first half rating, joking, cheating, chasing the shirts blue as they pass by.
Anfield was a bright and cold place at kick-off on one of those days when the top of the stand feels like a headland facing the Irish Sea. There was that whole Baroque musical brocade at the beginning, the pageantry of signs and flags and bed sheets, names, history, emotions, fun, magic.
Part of the effort is to create a story, a way to win. The fact is that this City team is a knee-winning machine. Here they blew Liverpool away from the start, making the pitch tiny, taking angles, creating a puzzle to solve for every pass or change of direction.
Related: Liverpool can ‘go the distance’ in the title race, says Jürgen Klopp
For long periods John Stones was the best player on the pitch, not just moonlighting as a midfielder these days, but the main controlling presence, taking the ball on the fly, setting the pace , breaking up the play, Xavi spidery. He scored the opening goal from a well executed corner routine. During that period Stones were a shaft of cold, pure blue light while Liverpool tried to create static, frictional sparks.
It took one minute of the second half to change the game. Darwin Núñez had a great game here. At one point he had as many interceptions to his name (five) as he had completed passes. Meanwhile he wandered around like an unruly labrador, canceling the dinner service, trampling on your Lego set, hardly ever playing football, more exercise like parkour practice. But he was there to cut down Nathan Aké’s poor back pass and take the penalty that made it 1-1.
Mac Allister took the kick and buried it in the top corner. And Mac Allister was excellent in that second half. He was still raging and flailing, unable to control the play or control the pace, because in that half this game seemed to exist outside the players, a runaway entity in itself.
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Mac Allister grew as the season progressed. He is an extraordinary elite midfielder. He is not fast, tall or elegant, or obviously noble in his style, but capable of great clever tricks, fearless, and the ability to see a pass, to read the movements of the planets orbiting around him. By the end he had four shots, four tackles, the goal, and endless brutal collisions to his name.
For a while Anfield threatened to throb with that old winning energy, the Kop end acting as a noise funnel. The city was too strong to bend. They might have won it in the end. They did all this, it should be said, playing essentially with nine players from the pitch, as Erling Haaland had almost no effect on the game, again being held back by excellent defenders in a big game. One of these days he will turn one of these occasions for City. On days like this, for all his impressive numbers, it seems to feel a little like watching a tournament winner playing up front for the world champions, another note of variety in a great game.
