Another one of these in 72 hours will do just fine. Enzo Maresca and Fabian Hurzeler’s ideals trade on the highest stakes, produce occasions of chaos – and that is just watching the pair of them on the touchline.

Somebody should be sticking GPS trackers on these two. A breathless tie, breathless teams. Both managers hopped and jumped, right on the edge, right on the cusp of glory and disaster in equal measure. The intricacies of a match at both this quality but also this speed can do that.

These were the second strings, remember. Separated only by penalties, only by Lewis Dunk’s effort being pushed away by stand-in goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli. City nudged into the quarter-finals via spot kicks.

Brighton are back here on Saturday afternoon and will do so with a reasonable expectation of winning, too. Undoubtedly, it represents Maresca’s biggest test of his short reign to make sure one league defeat doesn’t quickly become two.

He will be armed with far stronger artillery. Erling Haaland has been given the first half of this weekend off as annual leave alongside Elliot Anderson, Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and Gianluigi Donnarumma – decisions made with mental rest in mind.

City built a head of steam as this fascinating spectacle wore on but will be able to do so boasting the world’s finest striker and a central midfielder who drives them on when the serious stuff occurs. Hurzeler, engagingly brilliant in that slightly manic fashion of his, will be hatching plans to answer those questions.

The 33-year-old can draw those up not far from here. Brighton are spending the rest of this week in Manchester and they were beginning to look at home, picking holes in the City system – one largely focused on going man-to-man. Balls in behind the full backs were paying dividends and Jack Hinshelwood’s dart beyond Nico O’Reilly opened the hosts up on the half hour.

Marc Guehi went over to cover and possession was worked back to Georginio Rutter dropping off the front. His cross found Malick Yalcouye, whose effort struck Rulli and flew in. Whether Yalcouye stood offside when Rutter played the ball was inconclusive, with VAR not in operation given the EFL’s Fleetwood Town and Bradford City – still in the competition – do not use the technology.

There was a sense of agitation abound with the defending champions, who had not carved out any truly meaningful opportunities. And still hadn’t by the time Mateo Kovacic was celebrating a first goal for a year and a half. Maresca’s reaction to that was one of releasing pent-up frustration, rowing with fourth official Thomas Bramall for the refusal of a penalty in the build-up when Jaouen Hadjam’s hand had halted City’s progress.

As it was, Phil Foden worked back to Kovacic and the Croatian wrapped his right foot around it to find the far corner.

This felt as if Maresca had been attempting something slightly different, a mini tweak. O’Reilly shifted into midfield as a true inverted full back, with Rico Lewis pushing on out wide too. Guehi and Vitor Reis were left as the two true defensive pillars. A tough gig given Brighton’s movement but this is the high-risk, high-reward world of City’s Italian whose side have become the great entertainers.

That there had been a combined 16 changes between the teams from their weekend Premier League defeats and that they contributed to this fraught night indicated that the match up in a few days should be mouth-watering. A shame, really, that the UK television audience won’t be able to watch the three o’clock kick off.

More of the same would go down a treat and you just cannot call it beforehand – especially when Hurzeler’s team play like this.

Poetry, Brighton’s second. Within two minutes of the restart, pinning City into uncomfortable areas with a collection of first-time knocks, passing lines painting triangles up the left, and Hadjam rampaging forward to square for Rutter, whose thump into the far corner was impressive in both precision and power given the lack of back lift.

Were it not for Rulli’s acrobatics in tipping Rutter’s curling effort onto the bar, Brighton might have sorted the tie out before Maresca could even call for Jeremy Doku. Moments later, Donnarumma’s understudy was also caught in no man’s land and Rutter ought to have capitalised.

Those let offs and Doku’s introduction appeared to wake City from a slumber and they were level again with 18 minutes remaining. Rayan Cherki was illegally stopped as he danced through on goal and his eventual free-kick on the box’s edge squeezed beyond Jason Steele via an intuitive flick by Reis.

Mats Wieffer struck a post from a corner, with Enzo Fernandez somehow failing to convert Foden’s cross in stoppage time, only for Yankuba Minteh to then almost snatch it before penalties, Rulli saving twice – first Yasin Ayari and then Dunk – to become the hero of the evening.