Football’s return is not all about Liverpool – Manchester City can become legends with cup treble
MOST OF the focus in lockdown has been on the club looking for its first domestic title in three decades. We should not overlook the one seeking to become European champions for the first time in its 140year history. Amid the debate about which clubs have most to gain when English football resumes on June 17, Manchester City have been under the radar.
That might suit Pep Guardiola as he prepares his players for what might be another historic campaign finale.
City can win another treble this season, including the prize they arguably crave most of all: the Champions League, the final of which should have been taking place in Turkey on Saturday.
Guardiola is in the middle of a winning sequence which has already secured City’s place among the greatest teams England has ever seen.
They have won six of the past seven domestic trophies going back to their League Cup win in 2018. Technically, they could make it eight of the past nine if Liverpool were somehow to lose their 25-point Premier League lead.
Suspension
More realistically, there is a possibility City will extend the run to seven of the past nine domestic honours by adding the FA Cup, whenever that is played.
What will be of more interest to Guardiola and his bosses over the coming weeks is the discussions at UEFA about how they intend to complete this season’s Champions League. Before the suspension of games, the tournament was evolving in such a way to present City with their best chance of being European champions since Guardiola took charge at The Etihad. By outclassing Real Madrid in the Bernabeu, they had just made the club’s biggest statement on the continent since winning the 1970 UEFA Cup.
The major obstacle to success in the competition, Liverpool, are out. I do not see any side in the tournament better than City, or any who will match the intensity of the Tottenham and Liverpool sides which denied Guardiola in the past two years.
Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and Bayern Munich are the greatest threats, although the La Liga champions still have work to do to beat Napoli, and Bayern must finish the job against Chelsea to reach the quarter-finals. Even if City are paired against the French and Spanish champions, I believe the technical nature of those games would suit the English club. They would be much different types of encounters to their past two quarter-final defeats.
PSG have a massive disadvantage going back into a tournament without having played any league football because the French league was cancelled, and Barca are not what they were – the manner of their most recent exits, to Roma and Liverpool, showed that. That leaves Guardiola’s former club as the most dangerous potential opponents, helped by their earlier return to Bundesliga action. I still believe City are stronger.
That is why, wherever and whenever the competition concludes, City are my favourites. I doubt there will be a club that wants it more than them.
During the lockdown, I took the opportunity to stream City’s ‘All Or Nothing’ documentary covering the 2017-’18 season, and what struck me was Guardiola’s ability to use emotional situations to motivate his squad.
There was a fixture against Tottenham before which Guardiola instructed his players to dedicate their performance to David Silva and his partner, Yessica Suarez Gonzalez, as they dealt with the serious complications following their premature birth of their son. The team responded with a 4-1 win.
Over the past few months, Guardiola has suffered personal tragedy with the death of his mother when the pandemic was reaching its peak in Spain. That will have been an horrendous situation for him, such events putting the game into perspective.
We can never presume how such grief will affect an individual, but the example of Silva two years ago, in his case his son thankfully recovering, demonstrated how the most trying circumstances can bring a group closer together. Guardiola may not need any more inspiration, but the chance for his next major trophy, potentially the most cherished in world football, to be a tribute to his family may fuel him and his players.
Grievances against the authorities offer another incentive.
City have a pressing date with UEFA off the pitch on June 8, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport determining the legality of their Champions League ban, which was imposed for alleged breaches of financial fair play rules.
Just as the shock of UEFA’s initial statement must have had a demoralising impact at City, should CAS rule
in their favour it will galvanise them. Players such as Kevin De Bruyne will be monitoring the developments, desperate to ensure he does not miss two years of Champions League football at the peak of his career.
That is inconceivable for a player of his ability, especially as he and his teammates will be blameless if his executives are shown to have acted contrary to the rules.
Plaudits
Despite plenty of plaudits for City over the past three years, there is a persistent sense around the club that they have not always received the acclaim their feats merit.
The truth is that Guardiola’s first title, won with 100 points, was widely recognised as one of the most extraordinary Premier League achievements, and you will not need to look far to find article-upon-article about how he has redefined how to succeed in
England, and influenced a generation of coaches.
That impact has extended to another English tradition because until Guardiola came along, the idea of a “cup team” was like damning players with faint praise. It implied that a side was capable of turning it on in a one-off fixture such a cup tie, while lacking the mentality to deliver over a 38-game season.
Guardiola’s City have trampled over that. If they win a cup treble, they will match what the Liverpool team I played in managed in 2000-’01, playing every possible fixture in a season. The Champions League would make their accomplishment greater. City are the ultimate league and cup team of the era.
Only one trophy is missing from their collection, so it is not only those coaches craving promotion and league titles who want a successful restart. (© Daily Telegraph, London)