Lathered in narrative, there was only one man who was going to be centre stage at the Camp Nou on Wednesday night. Pep Guardiola's return to the place where he became a legend as a player and a manager was emotional for many a Barcelona fan, naturally.

It is hard to know what the true fairy tale would've been at the Camp Nou. However, it certainly wasn't Manchester City getting thrashed like they did. Humiliation after humiliation defensively saw Barcelona pick them apart and wait for each mistake to allow Lionel Messi to notch yet another hat-trick. Things conspired against Manchester City, but it is hard to have a great deal of sympathy with a team that aid their own downfall.

The narrative will be wrung out by fans and pundits alike for the following few days and Guardiola will undoubtedly have questions to answer from the press about the exclusion of Sergio Aguero.

Things can only get better from here for Manchester City and they won't face many tasks as tricky as this. Here are five of the images that sum up the tale of the evening...

Say Hi to Pep

Football Soccer - FC Barcelona v Manchester City - UEFA Champions League Group Stage - Group C - The Nou Camp, Barcelona, Spain - 19/10/16 Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola Action Images via Reuters / John Sibley Livepic EDITORIAL USE ONLY.

Barcelona's fans were pretty kind to Mr. Guardiola.

They don't really have much of a reason to feel anything but sheer admiration for their former manager, but it was nice to hear some positive sounds from fans towards someone who isn't involved in 'their' club anymore.

He can play a bit

FC Barcelona v Manchester City - UEFA Champions League Group Stage - Group C

Of all the players in the history of the game to gift a chance to, Lionel Messi is not a good'un.

He is probably the greatest that we have ever seen with the ball at his feet and Manchester City, after a decent start to the game, allowed him to humiliate Claudio Bravo and give Barca a 1-0 lead.

As cool as the Italian national team's suits, Messi left Bravo helpless on the floor.

What on earth was that?

FC Barcelona v Manchester City - UEFA Champions League Group Stage - Group C

Claudio Bravo's own idiocy to get himself sent off in the second half was immensely hurtful for Manchester City's hopes on Wednesday night.

Team Joe Hart will have been boosted by this one, which is some sort of consolation, but Bravo has done himself no favours in winning over any sceptics. A simply foolish handball outside the box left the Citizens with ten men for the majority of the second half.

Three's not always a crowd

FC Barcelona v Manchester City - UEFA Champions League Group Stage - Group C

He did it again. Lionel Messi, for the second time this year, scored a Champions League hat-trick.

Manchester City were slack defensively and they will unlikely feature in any compilations of Messi's greatest ever goals, but his career numbers continue to astonish. We will never see a footballer quite like Messi again and we must enjoy him while we can.

Elephant in the room

FC Barcelona v Manchester City - UEFA Champions League Group Stage - Group C

The big talk before the game surrounded Aguero and he will certainly be chatted about a fair bit in the postmortem of City's humiliation.

The Argentine star only appeared from the bench when the game was far gone for the Citizens and rumours will be afoot as to why he was left out.