93:20: the minute that won Manchester City the title

On 13 May 2012, at half past four in the afternoon, Manchester City were losing 2-1 at their own ground to Queens Park Rangers, a club fighting relegation. Manchester United's match at Sunderland had already finished. City had gone forty-four years without winning the English league.

How they reached the final day

City and United began the day level on 86 points, with City ahead on goal difference: +63 to +55. Matching results kept City champions, but any slip handed over the title.

At Sunderland, United won 1-0 through a Wayne Rooney header in the 20th minute from a Phil Jones cross. It was his thirty-fifth goal of the season. When the whistle went, United's players stood watching monitors at the side of the pitch.

The match that fell apart

Pablo Zabaleta put City ahead in the 39th minute with a shot Paddy Kenny could not hold, which went in off the woodwork. But in the 48th Djibril Cissé equalised: Joleon Lescott headed the ball back towards Joe Hart and Cissé read it first.

Shortly before the hour, Joey Barton was sent off for an elbow on Carlos Tévez; on his way off he kicked Sergio Agüero and tried to headbutt Vincent Kompany. QPR were down to ten with more than half an hour left. And even so, in the 66th, Jamie Mackie headed in from an Armand Traoré cross to make it 1-2.

The numbers for what followed are close to absurd. City finished with 44 shots — the most recorded in any Premier League match — 81.3% possession, 651 passes to QPR's 87 and 19 corners to none. Paddy Kenny made twelve saves. Between Zabaleta's goal and the equaliser, City had thirty-three consecutive shots without scoring.

The two goals

In the second minute of stoppage time, David Silva swung in a corner and Edin Džeko headed it down inside the near post. 2-2.

Two minutes later, Nigel de Jong carried the ball out and gave it to Agüero. Agüero fed Mario Balotelli on the edge of the box, Balotelli held off Anton Ferdinand, went down, and as he fell knocked the ball back into Agüero's path. One touch, a defender's body on him, and the finish across Kenny. The clock read 93:20.

It remains the only English league title decided on goal difference: City and United both finished on 89 points with identical records of 28 wins, 5 draws and 5 defeats. The difference was +64 to +56.

""It's finished at Sunderland, Manchester United have done all they can... Agueroooo! I swear you'll never see anything like this ever again.""

What almost nobody remembers

It is worth remembering where that City side had come from. It was the fourth year since the Abu Dhabi United Group bought the club in 2008 and Roberto Mancini's second full season. The squad already contained Vincent Kompany, Yaya Touré, David Silva, Joe Hart and a Sergio Agüero signed from Atlético Madrid the previous summer. None of that counted for much: the club had not won a league title since 1968 and its only recent major trophy was the previous year's FA Cup.

Agüero was booked for taking his shirt off to celebrate. There is now a statue outside the Etihad showing him in exactly that pose, swinging the shirt above his head.

Balotelli's assist was the only one he ever recorded in the Premier League. Seventy appearances, more than twelve hundred passes attempted, nine hundred completed, and exactly one that led to a goal.

And QPR stayed up. They needed Bolton not to win at Stoke, and Bolton drew 2-2: 37 points to 36. After Agüero scored, knowing they were safe, QPR's players put the ball out and stayed in their own half while Gaël Clichy and Joe Hart passed it near the corner flag. Two sets of players on the same pitch, celebrating entirely different things, neither of them able to explain the other to anyone watching.

That match also left a record that still stands: it is the only Premier League title decided on goal difference in thirty-four seasons, and Agüero’s goal remains the latest ever to settle the competition. City have won several titles since, some by enormous margins and with none of the suffering, and they have won trophies their 2012 squad never came close to. Not one of those afternoons is remembered like this one.

For City it was a first league title since 1968 and their first of the Premier League era. Their previous major trophy had come a year earlier: the 2011 FA Cup.

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