The mood amongst those with an attachment to Manchester City - and Chelsea, for that matter - was altered when the team news dropped at the Estadio do Dragao on Saturday night.
Manchester City began their first Champions League final without a single holding midfielder in their starting line-up. It was only the second time this season that neither Fernadinho nor Rodri had featured from the start.
Ilkay Gundogan played in the deepest role in midfield, having spent perhaps his best campaign in a City shirt to date in a much more advanced position.
Chelsea took full advantage of this aspect of the tactical battle, with the likes of Mason Mount and N'Golo Kante breaking into plenty of space in the middle of the park.
In fact, Kai Havertz's winning goal was served up from an inch-perfect pass from Mount, who had far too much time to play the ball from midfield.
Fernadinho came off the bench for the final half hour in Porto, though the damage was seemingly done by that point, Chelsea able to hold on for the win.
Did Guardiola get it wrong?
In hindsight, Pep Guardiola's decision to play without Fernandinho or Rodri initially appears to be the wrong one, especially when you consider how Chelsea's goal came about.
City weren't able to get the best out of Gundogan, Kevin de Bruyne or Bernardo Silva, with all three midfielders having doubts about their positions.
The result was a disjointed feel to City's play, with the only clear-cut chance of the game falling to Phil Foden, whose shot was quickly blocked by Antonio Rudiger.
Questions have been asked of Guardiola surrounding his team selection. After all, he's done this before. City crashed out of the Champions League to Lyon last season after the Catalan switched up his formation for the quarter-final tie.
However, given the amount Guardiola's style of play has influenced that of the English game in general since his arrival at City, it's hard to pull him up for one starting 11. It may well haunt him for a while, though.
midestivah
46
He didn't get it wrong, because of the hatred people has for Chelsea, they put all hope on man city to win Chelsea and got disappointed by Chelsea's fearless performance, but instead of congratulating Chelsea they chose to blame guardiola for losing, that is nonsense"football is either win or lose and they also forgot that Chelsea wasn't brought to come play final from group stage, they have to see off the likes of A. Madrid, Porto and R. Madrid enroute to the final but because of hatred they think Chelsea won those games with luck without hardwork, to you all you can congratulate Chelsea for job well done and stop these stupid talks