Thigao Alcantara, the Bayern midfielder schooled under Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, put it most succinctly. 'Football is the only sport in the world in which you can play s*** and win.'
Of course, it doesn't always end up like that. Arsenal 'played s***' against Thiago's Bayern last week and got thrashed. Statistics, a word likely to send the average British-footballer-turned-pundit into a paroxysm of apoplexy, show that Bayern had 68 per cent of the possession. Sometimes it really is nine tenths of the law.
But Thiago, a true Pep disciple, a man schooled at La Masia and who followed Guardiola to Bayern, does articulate a basic truth which will trouble Manchester City as they take on Monaco.