There are no doubts about Manchester City’s prowess

Can you really separate politics from sport? I’m not exactly sure.

Last week one critic said that the Saudis (LIV Golf) had paid Phil Mickelson $200 million (R3,6 billion) and given the same amount in total to homeless refugees in Gaza. Does sound cruel and bizarre but if true, I would be concerned too.

Then we go to Pep Guardiola, Man City and the money thing. I got nothing against Arabs, but the fact that major newspapers have exposed City for cooking the books (when it comes to Financial Fair Play) yet only Everton and Notts Forest have been docked points, worries me.

And then Pep said this week that if “money” were the reason City was winning, then other clubs like Man United, Chelsea and Arsenal should be ahead of them.

We all know this is bull because Chelsea only performed well when their oligarch was around and City are dominating because of one wealthy Abu Dhabi sheikh.

Despite all of this, we cannot help but praise City for winning the Premiership again. Four league wins in a row is amazing and six in seven years is beyond great. And they secured this after a spell of 23 undefeated games in the league (19 wins and four draws).

But the numbers don’t really demonstrate their class. This team — and I’m not exaggerating — is virtually zero defect. They make no mistakes, no bad passes, always moving into the correct spaces and they have no weak players. They are so good that one may argue that they are even better than Messi’s Barcelona. So plaudits to them — until found guilty.

Talking about money, the SA equivalent of Money City, Sundowns, secured their record 14th PSL title last week. This means the local oligarch’s team have now won the league eight times in the last 10 years. But even more impressive is they have won 52 games on the trot in the PSL (the last time they lost was September 2022).

For the record, German wunderclub Bayer Leverkusen reached their 50th undefeated game in all competitions after a 2-2 draw with Roma in their Uefa semis match.

The world record for wins on the trot is held by Scottish club Celtic, who went 66 games without defeat between 1915 and 1917. French team PSG have won the Ligue 1 title 10 times in the last 12 years. Interestingly and I had no idea about this, when it comes to international football, Italy lead the way and were undefeated in 39 games between 2018 and 2021.

Those of you who stayed up and watched Xander Schaufelle win his first major on Sunday (the PGA), were treated to something special. It was a wire-to-wire win — he led from day one to the end.

With five holes to go Viktor Hovland and Bryson DeChambeau were closing in and it looked very likely that they would go into a three-way playoff. However, Hovland found his putter wanting on 18 and Bryson made his putt. But Schaufelle, who hustled his way through, showed true grit by making two great chips on 17 and 18 to earn himself a birdie to secure victory.

It was really nice seeing Bryson making his way to the green to congratulate Xander and then seeing Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry also making the extra effort to go to him after he putted out. Apparently Schaufelle is one of the nicest guys on tour and even the commentators seemed happy for him.

There is obviously nice camaraderie among these players despite their LIV-PGA issues and this augurs well for the sport. By the way, Xander is of interesting parentage. His mother was born in Taiwan but grew up in Japan before moving to the U.S. His father, Stefan, was born in Stuttgart to a French mother and German father.

Call me a bit of an old fart, but I keep hearing very basic mispronunciations of huge sports stars’ names on the radio and it irritates me. This week, I twice heard someone on the country’s leading radio station call Schaufelle (pronounced Show-flay) “Show-fell”. I mean this guy has been around for years, the least you can do is to learn his name.

Then, on Saturday on a KZN station, I heard someone make reference to “Atoon” Senna. This guy was one of the greatest F1 driver of all time and if you’re doing sport, I would recommend you take a few moments to learn his name.

On a personal note, I have received information that I have been granted accreditation to the Paris Olympics. I am currently looking for inexpensive accommodation in the French capital, but it seems like a wild goose chase. Will keep you posted.