Jack Grealish, Champagne Supernova

As City's players finally breathed a sigh of relief and Inter's despaired, preparations for the coveted Champions League began at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium. A mythical trophy, the goal for every footballer who has dreamed of lifting it into the sky one night since childhood. Yet despite the significance of the result, victory seemed predictable, almost a foregone conclusion for Manchester City, who had travelled to Istanbul with all odds stacked against them. In those feverish moments on the pitch, however, there were some who were overjoyed, imbued with a joy that clashed with the behaviour of their colleagues. Too emotional, too authentic, almost out of place during the UEFA awards protocol. In the Manchester City party, the Mancunian working-class team turned sheikh's playground, Jack Grealish turned back the clock to when the Premier League was a hunting ground for lads who'd had a few too many pints.

First on the pitch, then in the press conference, on the plane and finally on an open-top bus through Manchester, triumphantly holding aloft the first big-eared trophy in the club's history. Graelish lurches from side to side in the parade, but without losing track of every selfie, every hand shake, every bottle uncorked. At one point Kyle Walker has to hold him by his shorts, the last remaining article of clothing on his person, to prevent him from falling off the bus while taking photos. But it's certainly not the fear of falling that stops City's No 10. He continues his personal party by having Haaland pour a bottle of champagne over his head while he is live on Instagram, spreading his arms on the back of the bus in what has already become the Citizens' party photo.

With a Christ the Redeemer pose, Grealish reconciles us to a fundamental element of football, the childlike and miraculous wonder of victory. If the Champions League triumph was just the latest step on the road to consecrating Guardiola's team with the triple, or treble, achieved through obvious superiority, then the Birmingham boy's eyes, veiled by alcohol, tell us how many sacrifices, how many difficulties lie behind the conquest of a trophy that can seem almost natural to us from afar. In an interview with CBS Sports Golazo immediately after the match still drenched in sweat, he explained with great honesty the significance of such an important victory and all the ups and downs that led him to European glory.

Grealish did indeed have to live with the bittersweet burden of having been the highest-paid English footballer, thanks to the £100 million City spent to poach him from his hometown club Aston Villa. And the initial difficulties of settling into Guardiola's playing system, coupled with the expectations, pressures and desires of those who were already portraying him as the new David Beckham, marked his first few seasons in blue. Then something changed, in him and in the team, and Grealish became a fixture at City. In City's perfect war machine, where every little soldier has to perform to perfection the task of never losing control of the ball and the game, Grealish is the one who has gained the most creative freedom over the course of games. With his feet firmly planted on the right touchline, he has created an expressive space in which to unleash his technique in one-on-one and ball handling.

And the compromise between Pep's transparent game architecture and Grealish's low-socked rhino football is the soul of City's celebrations, where his emotion and joy show a face of blue-collar City that is lost with each passing season. Like every J.R. Smith, he fails to put back on the jersey he gave his all for on the pitch, and like for his alter-ego Jamie Tartt, the customary headband he uses to hold up his perfectly upswept hair is just a way of hiding the crudest of emotions. A Spice Boy with a heart of gold, the Gucci testimonial sang a chorus for each of his teammates, from "Rodri is on fire" as a tribute to the man of the match in the final to "Bernardo" to the tune of ABBA's Voulez-Vous in a silk Dolce&Gabbana PJ, not to mention Wonderwall's singalong straight from the dressing room in Istanbul, already with a can of beer in hand. In a sport undergoing rapid change, Jack Grealish, in a site waistcoat and with a bottle in his hand, kept the spirit of English football alive and distilled it into drops of madness and fury.