But on a night when Newcastle moved one step closer to their destiny, it was striking how completely Guimarães has come to embody this Saudi-owned sporting vehicle: a saviour in villain’s clothing, a thing of pure hunger and yearning, a cleanness wrapped in an entirely unapologetic dirtiness.
In a way, those 45 seconds of Newcastle’s 2-0 win against Arsenal were perhaps the purest distillation of that volatile and mystifying substance known as Total Bruno: the boundless skill and the base-metal skulduggery, the artistry and the industry, the beauty and the ugliness, all in one irresistible package.
Bruno Guimarães inspires Newcastle to the Carabao Cup final by honing in on Arsenal’s breaking points.
St James’ Park is one of those stadiums best glimpsed at night: the lit amphitheatre on the hill, the hot breath on cold air, a roar that rolls down from the top of the Gallowgate and feels in its most feral moments like the very disapproval of God himself.
This was of course the perfect fixture to elicit it: a second leg almost preordained as a kind of suffering, a night for defending your turf, for 32% possession and slaloming counterattacks, for heroic blocks and bodyslamming these fey southerners into touch.
