Four of Manchester City's six Premier League triumphs have gone right to the wire, where margins are so fine the title battle can be settled by a single man in a single moment.
Sergio Aguero of course set the standard in 2011-12 with surely the most iconic goal of the Premier League era, defeating QPR at the death and clinching a first City championship in 44 years.
Then, in 2018-19, it was Vincent Kompany's turn. Although the departing City captain made only 17 league appearances that year, he will forever be associated with the title win after his thunderous strike secured a vital late-season victory over Leicester City.
"Where do you want your statue, Vincent Kompany?" asked Sky Sports' Gary Neville. Both Aguero and Kompany – and those celebrations – have since been committed to steel structures outside the Etihad Stadium.
The City hero was perhaps not quite so clear-cut in 2013-14, when Liverpool's collapse took centre stage, but Yaya Toure's 20 goals from midfield kept his side in touch. While City spent only 15 days of the season at the summit, the win that put them there in the final week perhaps provided the defining image of the champions' campaign, as Toure charged through the Aston Villa defence to score a goal that BBC Sport's Alan Shearer considered "like watching a 15-year-old against under-12s".
Three City legends have had seasons to call their own. Kevin De Bruyne, until now, had not.
De Bruyne was the PFA Players' Player of the Year in consecutive years, but the 2019-20 campaign in which he equalled Thierry Henry's 20-assist, single-season record ended with Liverpool on top. The 2020-21 season played out largely without fans and ultimately without a serious challenge to City, robbing their leading man of his platform.
Consistent excellence had for so long characterised the midfielder's career rather than any particular peak.
Now, however, after the decisive assist in another dramatic fightback against Villa on Sunday, 2021-22 might be remembered as the De Bruyne season – a most unexpected conclusion given how the campaign started, as perhaps his worst in a City shirt.
'Difficult physically and mentally'
The player of the year he may have been, but De Bruyne's 2020-21 season did not finish in the manner he would have wished.
The former Chelsea man lasted only an hour of City's Champions League final defeat to the Blues last May, suffering facial fractures that impacted his preparation for Euro 2020. De Bruyne found form again at the finals, only to hobble out of Belgium's last-16 win over Portugal with an ankle issue.
Although De Bruyne played in the next round, as Belgium lost to Italy, he continued to be hampered by the injury at the start of this season, appearing in City's Premier League opener but then not again for almost four weeks.
"It's been a bit difficult physically and mentally," the 30-year-old told the MIDMID podcast in November, revealing he had played through "some serious pain".
"It's going to be a little more difficult this year than usual," De Bruyne suggested, and that seemed a fair prediction.
The City superstar, who also missed time with COVID-19, made his 10th league appearance of the season in a 1-0 home win over Wolves on December 11. At that stage, he had scored only twice in the competition and failed to provide a single assist – averaging a goal involvement every 246 minutes.
The only comparable De Bruyne season in a City shirt was in 2018-19, when two knee ligament injuries meant his 10th league appearance did not come until early February. Over 465 minutes up to that point, he scored once.
That is the sole other example of De Bruyne not contributing an assist through his first 10 league outings in a season for City; in fact, he had tallied at least four assists and six goal involvements by that point in each of his other five campaigns prior to 2021-22.
A week before De Bruyne's podcast appearance last year, Belgium coach Roberto Martinez was also asked to address his star man's form, acknowledging the "scrutiny" he faced while underperforming in a team as talented as City's.
"I'm not worried at all," Martinez said. "We feel that his best football is coming back."
De Bruyne added: "I just needed more time than expected."
'Now he scores a lot'
De Bruyne's 11th game of this campaign was very different. In a 7-0 City win over Leeds United, the team's talisman doubled his seasonal tally by scoring twice, including a thunderous 25-yard drive for his second.
"For the whole team, it's a booster," De Bruyne told NBC Sports – although that surely applied more to the two-goal star than his team-mates, with City moving four points clear at the top of the table with the victory.
"There's been a lot happening this year, a little bit out of my control, so the only thing I can do is try to work hard and come back as quick as possible," he said.
It was clearly a turning point for De Bruyne, who scored 13 goals and provided eight assists in 20 matches from the Leeds game until the end of the season. A goal involvement every 82 minutes over this period just beats his single-season best from 2019-20 (85 minutes per goal involvement).
Yet De Bruyne's role has altered in the past two years. He did not match his outstanding 33 goal involvements from the year Liverpool won the title, but 15 goals represent a career high.
The reason for that change perhaps has more to do with De Bruyne's City team-mates than the player himself.
In 2019-20, six of De Bruyne's 20 assists were for record goalscorer Aguero – more than for any other player. Of course, Aguero has since departed.
The retired striker was City's leading marksman in six of his 10 league campaigns in Manchester, including each of his first four playing alongside De Bruyne.
With Aguero gone and Erling Haaland not arriving until next term, City needed someone to fill the void in front of goal. De Bruyne, whether used in midfield or attack, has done that in the second half of the season.
Despite the slow start, City's top scorer has scored with 19.2 per cent of his shots in 2021-22; his previous high, in his debut 2015-16 season, saw a shot conversion rate of 14.3 per cent.
"I like it a lot," Pep Guardiola said in April after De Bruyne had netted four in four games – including two against Manchester United and one against Liverpool.
"He is not just a player to make assists – now he scores a lot of goals. I've said to him many times, 'I know you enjoy making a lot of assists, for you and your team-mates, but you have to score goals to reach another stage'. Now he is doing that, a lot of goals and chances."
'We have to move on'
De Bruyne either scored or assisted in 14 of those 20 games in the run-in, but he saved his best performances for when it mattered most – at least in the league.
There were suspicions City's season might fall apart when Real Madrid's remarkable semi-final recovery eliminated Guardiola's side from the Champions League at the start of May. With Liverpool in hot pursuit in the Premier League, the leaders were afforded little time to regroup as they headed straight into matches against Newcastle United at home and Wolves away.
"We are going to play against Newcastle thinking about [the Madrid defeat], for sure," said Guardiola in an enthralling news conference, revealing two days before the Newcastle match: "We didn't speak. No words can help what all of us feel. It's just a question of time."
Time, and Tottenham drawing at Liverpool, as it turned out.
A rare slip-up at Anfield on the eve of City's game against Newcastle eased the pressure on the champions. Then De Bruyne got to work.
Briefly restored to his 2019-20 vintage, De Bruyne attempted only a single shot at the Etihad but created six chances in a 5-0 win – his most in a single game this season – including an assist for Rodri's goal.
That performance prompted Jamie Carragher in the Sky Sports studio to declare De Bruyne "the greatest player to ever play for Manchester City", "the best midfield player in the world right now" and "the best player in the Premier League for the past three or four years".
Yet better was still to come at Wolves, where City became the first team in English top-flight history to win five consecutive league games by a margin of at least three goals. De Bruyne alone outscored Wolves by three, netting four in a 5-1 victory.
The first hat-trick of his City career was completed inside 24 minutes – the third-fastest in Premier League history – to blow away a Wolves team who had briefly threatened to cause their visitors some problems.
"It should have been five, to be honest," De Bruyne told Sky Sports, before conversation turned back to the Madrid match.
"It's very difficult to explain because it was just a mad five minutes," he said. "It's not that we played bad or something, it was just five minutes that you can't explain as a player. I don't know what happened. I was out of control on the bench anyway, so you feel a little bit in shock. It's not nice and the feeling is still not nice.
"But you need to move on. We're trying now to win the title and whatever happened unfortunately happened. We have to move on."
The Wolves display would have been fresh in Carragher's mind on Monday when he named De Bruyne his personal player of the season. The Premier League award followed ahead of the crucial final-day assist for Ilkay Gundogan, although other individual end-of-season honours may evade De Bruyne. Many are voted on well in advance of the final weeks of the campaign – before De Bruyne had done his best work.
Mohamed Salah is the FWA Footballer of the Year and may also be recognised by the PFA; he scored four goals in his final 11 games – as many as De Bruyne managed on one night in Wolverhampton.
A Premier League title, defined by his clutch performances, is not a bad consolation.
Mourinho and Roma deserve bans for Taylor treatment, says Ref Support chief
Jose Mourinho should be suspended from coaching and Roma barred from European competitions following the "disgraceful" harassment of Anthony Taylor after Wednesday's Europa League final.
That is the view of Martin Cassidy, chief executive of Ref Support UK – a charity committed to supporting officials – after Taylor was abused following Roma's penalty shoot-out defeat to Sevilla.
Roma boss Mourinho was fiercely critical of Taylor's performance as Sevilla won a record-extending seventh Europa League title via spot-kicks following an ill-tempered 1-1 draw in Budapest.
Thirteen players were booked during the match, while Gonzalo Montiel scored his winning penalty at the second attempt after Rui Patricio was punished for encroachment after initially saving his kick.
Mourinho was seen shouting expletives at Taylor after the game, and the English official was harassed by Giallorossi supporters when at Budapest Airport with his family.
Speaking to Stats Perform, Cassidy outlined the strong punishments he would like to see issued to coaches who abuse officials.
"I'd be interested to speak to the legal people in UEFA and FIFA, to see if they could take their coaching badges away from them," Cassidy said.
"Take it away from them. Say, 'I'm sorry, we are going to suspend your badge, you can't coach at that level'. Let's see what that does.
"Obviously, big legal challenges will come that way. But let's have things in place to say, 'Look, a stadium ban is not working on you and one or two fines when you are a multimillionaire are not going to bother you'.
"Let's really hurt you, let's take you away from being able to coach, let's suspend your coaching badge. Job done."
Cassidy believes Mourinho's behaviour is being replicated by grassroots coaches, and says his club should be barred from Europe or handed a points deduction for next season.
"It's just disgraceful," he added. "How many chances does this man [Mourinho] want before some national governing body or UEFA or FIFA take appropriate action against him?
"This behaviour he shows manifests itself at grassroots level when there's a youth referee in the middle, and little mini-Mourinhos are on the sidelines repeating and replicating those antics.
"It's not good at all. And I just think, the managers – it's not just Jose Mourinho – other people do it and have been doing for a long time… they throw in a small fine, it might be £100 or £1,000.
"That's a small fine for some of these people, for some of them it is not even a week's wages. They throw in a ban, well, Jose Mourinho has been banned before from stadiums and still found a way of doing his coaching.
"What are UEFA going to do? I think don't allow them to play in Europe next year.
"If they do allow them to play in Europe, let's have them on a minus points deficit of say three or four points, let's just have a message that is different to what we've been doing previously."
Barcelona come from two goals down to beat Wolfsburg and win Champions League
Fridolina Rolfo’s strike completed a stunning second-half comeback to secure Barcelona the Champions League trophy with a 3-2 victory over Wolfsburg at Eindhoven’s sold-out Philips Stadion.
The Spanish side were favourites to win a second title in three years but were stunned by Ewa Pajor’s opener after just three minutes, while skipper Alexandra Popp extended Wolfsburg’s advantage to two before the break.
Two goals inside two second-half minutes for Patricia Guijarro brought Barcelona back into the contest immediately following the restart before they benefited from a Wolfsburg error to seal the win.
Barca’s victory also made English history, with Lioness Lucy Bronze becoming the first from her country to win the Champions League title with two clubs having previously done so three times with Lyon.
Both sides had eliminated English opponents to get here, with Wolfsburg seeing off Arsenal and Barcelona reaching their fourth showpiece in five seasons after drawing 1-1 with Chelsea in their second leg to advance 2-1 on aggregate.
Current England and former Netherlands boss Sarina Wiegman brought out the trophy on a sunny afternoon in her native country, and was no doubt delighted to see Bronze, recovered from knee surgery, back in the Barcelona starting line-up exactly seven weeks before the Lionesses open their World Cup campaign.
It was the England defender’s mistake, however, that led to her side conceding after just two minutes and 57 seconds – the fastest Barcelona had ever fallen behind in the competition.
Barca had a shot stopped by Merle Frohms before Pajor won the ball off Bronze and made her way into the centre before drilling past Sandra Panos into the top right corner.
That likely conjured up painful memories for Barcelona, who conceded to eventual 3-1 winners Lyon after six minutes last year in Turin.
Irene Paredes cringed after wasting a free header, while at the other end Sveindis Jonsdottir had a half-volley saved for the Frauen-Bundesliga runners-up.
Caroline Graham Hansen found herself in a perfect position to level from Mapi Leon’s excellent delivery but the Norwegian could not connect and seemed thrown off by the bounce the ball took en route to the six-yard box.
As the Liga F champions struggled to settle into a dominant rhythm, Pajor turned provider and sent a fine delivery in the direction of her skipper to dutifully head home – Popp in the process equalling Ada Hegerberg’s UWCL record as she got herself on the finals scoresheet in a fourth separate season.
It took an alert Frohms to deny Salma Paralluelo late in the period and send her side into the second half with a two-goal advantage.
That was erased within five minutes after the restart when Guijarro collected Graham Hansen’s cut-back, then nodded her second past a leaping Frohms two minutes later from Aitana Bonmati’s delivery.
Barcelona’s comeback was complete after Lynn Wilms’ attempted clearance instead deflected off team-mate Kathrin Hendrich, allowing Mariona Caldentey to tap the ball to Rolfo, who fired in the 70th-minute winner from the edge of the six-yard box.
Both benches showed nerves during seven minutes of stoppage time, but it was Barca who ultimately survived a late scare to secure the trophy.
Hugo Lloris contemplating Tottenham exit as he has ‘desire for other things’
Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris admitted he “desires for other things” and is contemplating what life could look like away from the north London club at “the end of an era.”
The 36-year-old retired from international duty with France in January, one year after signing a contract extension that would keep him at Spurs through to the end of next season.
There has been speculation, however, that the goalkeeper might have already played his last game for the side he joined in 2012 following his season-ending thigh injury against Newcastle in April.
Lloris told French newspaper Nice-Matin: “We are coming to an important moment, whether for the club or for me. It’s the end of an era. I have desires for other things, I will ask myself quietly to study what will be possible.
“But I don’t forget that I still have a year of contract with Tottenham and that in football it is always difficult to predict what will happen.
“What is essential at the moment is to recover well from my injury. I’m on vacation but I continue to talk and do my training. My goal is to be on top in July, then we’ll see what the future holds for me.”
Lloris acknowledged Spurs, who finished eighth this term after securing a Champions League berth last season, had failed to live up to expectations and cited injuries as part of the problem.
He said: “We failed as a team by not being able to reverse the course of things. It’s disappointing but it’s part of the life of a top-level football club. The most important thing is to prepare as well as possible for next season and to learn from our mistakes.”
The Frenchman did not rule out a return to Nice, where he started his senior career before moving to Lyon and then north London, though he was adamant he was not forcing his current club into a move.
He added: “Nice is my city, my club, my roots. There is a season that must end, as best as possible, with the goalkeepers in place. I am not demanding, I have never forced things. We’ll see where fate takes me.”
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