When Su Dong fell inside Barcelona's penalty area and was pinned to the grass by his Man City teammates, who came sprinting over to celebrate the goal, Man City's big three were receiving Barcelona vice president Bartomeu in the presidential stand.
Man City chairman Mubarak, general manager Soriano, and Technical Director Begiristain—the big three included two men from Barcelona, while Mubarak was not really responsible for specific affairs. That was why many people said that Man City was actually like a branch of Barcelona.
This became even more obvious after Guardiola took charge of Man City and built a possession-based system that was closer to Barcelona's traditions. Even Barcelona's godfather, Cruyff, said that Barcelona's true lineage now lay with Man City.
Soriano and Begiristain were handling most of the reception for Bartomeu.
The three of them had once worked together at Barcelona and were quite familiar with one another, so they had plenty to talk about.
Bartomeu was dropping hints. He still had not given up on Guardiola and wanted to ask about the possibility of letting Guardiola return to Barcelona as manager. But whether it was Soriano or Begiristain, both rejected the idea flatly, declaring that Man City would never release Guardiola to coach Barcelona.
This left Bartomeu deeply disappointed. According to their original plan, they had still hoped to persuade Man City's management to release him, then win over Guardiola through an emotional appeal and invite the famous former club legend back to Camp Nou as manager.
But now, the hope seemed slim.
That was why, when Messi opened the scoring for Barcelona after only three minutes and successfully leveled the aggregate score, Bartomeu stood up with great satisfaction and applauded Messi enthusiastically.
It looked rather undignified, but it was satisfying.
So what if they could not bring