Pep Guardiola had hugged almost every member of his Manchester City squad and staff by the time he finally spotted Nico O’Reilly in the midst of a huddle.
In fairness, O’Reilly had been saddled with doing the immediate post-match interviews for television and had to wait to join the celebrations.
So when Guardiola eventually spotted his unassuming match-winner, he lurched back on his heels for a moment for dramatic effect, as if to say: “How could I have missed you out?”
Guardiola is a hugely emotional man and the celebration that greeted O’Reilly’s second goal aside, it was never more apparent than in that touching moment he wrapped his arms around the academy graduate and then swept him away from the main group for a while and began whispering in his ear.
This was a birthday weekend O’Reilly will never forget. On Saturday, he turned 21 and a day later he had scored twice with headers in the space of four breathless minutes at Wembley to claim the first trophy – and doubtless the last – of his fledgling but burgeoning career.
City have spent £430m on new players in just over a year but Guardiola went as far as to suggest that the best addition to his squad in that time may have come from within. “Maybe he was the signing of the season,” the Catalan said of the youngster who has been with the club since he was eight.
Watching from the stands was Thomas Tuchel and if the England manager needed convincing of O’Reilly’s suitability on the big stage, then he got his answer emphatically here.
Timing is everything in sport and O’Reilly may be timing his pitch to be England’s starting left-back at the World Cup finals this summer to perfection.
It is one of those positions that most obviously remains up for grabs, but more performances like this, and it will be hard for Tuchel to overlook O’Reilly for the likes of Lewis Hall or Dan Burn.
O’Reilly is one of 11 players who will not be involved in England’s first friendly against Uruguay on Friday and, given there are plenty of guaranteed starters among that group who will delay joining up with the squad, City fans will wonder whether that offers some clues about Tuchel’s current thinking.
The German must have been impressed by O’Reilly, not least in terms of his nose for goal and ability to take up dangerous attacking positions.
That comes naturally to O’Reilly, who rose through the ranks of City’s academy as an attacking midfielder and even spent a season playing at centre-forward before being turned into a marauding full-back by Guardiola.
The City manager has form for converting midfielders into full-backs (Fabian Delph, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Matheus Nunes) and full-backs into midfielders (Phillip Lahm, Joshua Kimmich) and O’Reilly feels like another pet project for the great innovator.
Some at City feel O’Reilly’s long-term position will be as a No 6 – a role he has also performed adeptly under Guardiola – but he is such a multi-functional player and that will also appeal to Tuchel, as will his height and physicality that makes him a threat in the air. Both goals against Arsenal were headers.
He still has much to learn defensively. The 3-0 Champions League defeat by Real Madrid, when he misjudged the flight of the ball in the lead-up to Federico Valverde’s first goal and generally had a very tough night in the Bernabéu, is a reminder of that.
But he is improving in his defensive work and it is also worth remembering that he scored in Madrid in the league phase last December to lead City’s fight back from a goal down to win 2-1.
“When we started the season we had a long conversation with him,” said Guardiola. “He started to play when Rayan Ait-Nouri was injured and impressed a lot. He played as a holding midfielder in Newcastle and was unbelievable against [Sandro] Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes and Joelinton.
“He can play in the pocket, his natural position, every cross he is there. He’s strong in the aerial actions, especially offensively – defensively he has to improve. But he has been so surprising even for me. The season he has done so far has been extraordinary.”
O’Reilly loves Manchester so much that he has a tattoo of the city’s area code – 0161 – on his left arm. Now he has left an indelible mark of a different kind. Tuchel will hope he can leave similar imprints for England in the US this summer.