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MANCHESTER. – Sometimes, the football takes over, and everything that went before – the bitterness, the grudges, the sense of not belonging – simply evaporates, with the image of a stunning goal or crucial save becoming the focal point.

Manchester City supporters will remember the night their team produced an incredible fightback to defeat AS Monaco 5-3 at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night – not because they gave UEFA another earful or booed the officials off at half-time but because Sergio Aguero scored a memorable volley, goalkeeper Willy Caballero saved a Radamel Falcao penalty, and they witnessed one of the most thrilling and chaotic games of the Champions League era.

If the City fans who struggle to embrace the Champions League fail to buy into the competition after this energy-sapping, emotional 90 minutes, they never will.

Both teams must play it again at Stade Louis II in Monte Carlo on Mar. 15, with Monaco hosting City in the second leg of this last-16 pairing, and the tie is by no means over, particularly with the French team boasting the talents of the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Djibril Sidibe and Bernardo Silva.

Monaco must win by two clear goals to eliminate Pep Guardiola’s team and reach the quarter-finals, but this is a side that has topped French Ligue 1 with 76 goals in 26 league games this season.

All is still to play for, and the Principality will eagerly await the return fixture. “We are going there to score goals,” Guardiola said. “If we don’t score in Monaco, we will go out. Of course, anything can happen in Monaco, so we have to score goals.”

While more drama awaits in Monaco, this game will go down as the night that the theatre of the Champions League truly arrived in the blue half of Manchester.

City have had good nights in Europe before, with memorable encounters against Hamburg and Paris Saint-Germain as well as crucial group-stage victories against Bayern Munich and Barcelona. But this was the first time that the team and supporters have drawn on each other to produce a victory such as this.

The hosts twice trailed the French league leaders and would have gone 3-1 behind but for Caballero’s save to deny Radamel Falcao’s second-half penalty, but Guardiola’s players were driven on by the crowd as they pushed Monaco back to run out 5-3 winners.

At 3-3, Guardiola waved his arms manically in an attempt to rouse the supporters, but he did not need to. By that stage, they had put aside their pre-match grievances with UEFA, when they booed the Champions League anthem once again, to roar their team on.

Both teams had just cause to feel hard done by the officials, with Raheem Sterling’s opener for City appearing offside and Sergio Aguero harshly booked for diving when he was fouled in the Monaco penalty area. But this was not a story of bad calls by Spanish referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz and his officials. It wasn’t even a night when defensive mistakes and goalkeeping howlers at either end emerged as the lead story.

There were plenty of those, of course, with neither defence covering itself in glory and both Caballero and Monaco keeper Danijel Subasic having moments to forget, but the stand-out moments were glorious.

Aguero, whose City future remains in doubt, offered a reminder of his class with two goals, the first being the one that resulted in Subasic’s mistake and the second a world-class volley from 6 yards. But there was also his lung-bursting defensive work and tracking back, which prompted Guardiola to step onto the pitch and applaud the forward, who had recently been eclipsed by Brazilian youngster Gabriel Jesus until the broken metatarsal injury that potentially ended his season last week.

At the other end, with two jaw-dropping goals of his own, Falcao showed that he has well and truly moved on from his two-year Premier League nightmare at Manchester United and Chelsea. His first-half diving header was of the kind rarely seen in the game nowadays, with players more inclined to volley than head the ball. His second goal, for which he embarrassed City’s £47.5 million defender John Stones before chipping Caballero from 15 yards, was as good as you are likely to see anywhere in the world this season.

Falcao’s penalty miss in the 51st minute was a low point, but he made up for it with the goal that put Monaco 3-2 ahead. Yet City summoned the energy and spirit to fight back, and at the end, the 5-3 winning margin gives them a huge advantage for the second leg.

“A lot of things happened, but in the moment, we were lucky,” Guardiola said. “We were stable mentally, and the old and young guys in the team played amazing. To live this experience helps us a lot in the future. Monaco has more history than us in the competition, and you need this kind of experience to learn and improve.

“(Man City) think in attack – attack, attack, attack – but Monaco score maybe 80 goals in one season and attack with a lot of people. They are physically strong and are a top, top team. For us, the result is OK. It could be better, could be worse, but it is what it is.”

Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim, repeatedly touted as a successor to Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, admitted that Tuesday’s game was a joy to watch and insisted his team will be ready for City when they meet again.

“I think the first thing I can say is that today’s game was perhaps one of the most exciting Champions League games this season,” Jardim said. “I imagine everyone was happy to witness such a spectacle.

“The real key for this game was when we could have gone 3-1 up but didn’t. But I’ve congratulated my players because the tie is far from over. We have 90 minutes to play.”

The next 90 minutes will do well to top the game played at the Etihad. But after so much negativity and acrimony toward the Champions League among City’s supporters, this felt like the night the club truly arrived in the competition.

It was the Etihad’s first European glory night, but if they can see off Monaco in the second leg, the stadium and these fans can look forward to more of them this season. – ESPN.