Xabi-ball generally limits the amount of times Real Madrid’s wing-backs are isolated against wingers in 1v1 duels in deep positions. Most of Carreras’s work is carried high up the pitch. He wins the ball in the opponents’ half, and if the press gets beat, he sprints back and stops breaks reliably.

When Marcus Rashford and Jude Bellingham stepped out onto the Santiago Bernabeu pitch on Sunday evening, few could have predicted the layer of history that was about to unfold.