Champions League underachievers to deliver
When does an expectation become an obligation? Manchester City are desperate to win the Champions League, to take the next step after a decade of spending, unimaginable improvement and three Premier League titles. Pep Guardiola is consumed by regaining the trophy he won twice at the start of his career but has not got close to since.
But there comes a point where winning this trophy is no longer just a target or an aspiration for City, but something that they have to do. To take the next step after domestic domination. To make sense of all their
spending and success. To validate Guardiola’s own supremacy at the top of the game. To accrue something more elusive than sporting success: status.
This is City’s eighth season in the Champions League, their sixth in the knock-out round and their third under Guardiola. They can no longer hide behind inexperience, or claim they just need to round this bend of the learning curve. There is nothing provisional or temporary about their European record any more. They are now clearly guilty of underachievement. And no-one knows that better than Guardiola and the players themselves.
Ilkay Gundogan knows about what it means to compete at the top level of the Champions League. He scored in but lost the 2013 final with Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund after all. Six years on, Gundogan knows this City team have not done enough in this competition. And that until they lift the trophy this era of the club will still feel unfulfilled.
“I think we have experienced a lot in the Champions League in recent years, not all of it positive of course,” Gundogan said. “We should have won it at least once. So, as you can imagine, there is a very big drive within us to do something in the Champions League.”
Even in this new era of billionaire benefactor investment the Champions League trophy has remained in the hands of the traditional elite. Chelsea have won it once, beating Bayern Munich on penalties in 2012. Manchester City have only ever reached one semi-final, and Paris Saint Germain have not even done that. The last six finals have been won by one of the ‘big three’ of Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid, all against traditional but overachieving sides (Dortmund, Juventus, Atletico Madrid and Liverpool). Buying titles in Europe is far harder than buying at home.
Gundogan knows that City need to be in that club. “It is very special for every team,” he said. “I think that if you want to be in the international elite, when you want to be there both as a club and as a player, you need to clinch this trophy. You cannot go past it, at least in my opinion.”
Lift the trophy in Madrid on June 1 and in that moment the perception of City would change. They would no longer be the arrivistes of European football, they would be accepted among the traditional elite. Status, more than anything else, is what City are aiming for here.
“I think that if we were to win it someday, the club would enter a new era,” Gundogan said. “[It would be lifted] to the same level as Real [Madrid], Barça, Bayern [Munich] or Juventus, clubs that are maybe a step above us. Maybe not in the way they play football, but as a club at least. And our job is to try and give it our all to make it a reality someday.”
That explains the contrasting priorities between City and Liverpool over the final bend of this season. Liverpool have already won five European Cups, they do not need another to burnish their global reputation. What they need is a league title, for the first time in a generation. City have won three leagues in the last seven years, which is why Europe is their next frontier.
Last year City were knocked out of the Champions League by Liverpool at the quarter-finals, a result Gundogan describes as “the biggest low” of City’s European campaigns so far. But he hopes that this year’s domestic campaign, with Liverpool having a slight edge over City, could in fact give them the edge in Europe. Because last year tension was a stranger to City as they stormed to a 100-point season, winning the league by a huge gap of 19 points. So when Liverpool came at them they did not know how to react. This year they are in a race, and Gundogan believes that could strengthen City in Europe. Last season was “too comfortable” for his team, this year is not.
“When you don’t have to overcome difficult situations, when you don’t play games under pressure, when you don’t go through negative experiences, you can’t win big things,” he said. “I don’t think the fact that we were ahead of the rest of the teams [in the Premier League] was really an advantage last season going into other competitions. We had a comfortable points difference right from the beginning. That was maybe even too comfortable for us, going into other competitions. This season looks a bit different though, but I don’t take it as a negative.”
But before any of this there is Schalke, away on Wednesday night. With the Carabao Cup final on Sunday, the priority for City is to win tonight and take the pressure off the second leg. This feels more like a game they have to tick off, rather than a test, and if they play like they have been recently then they will win. “We are clear favourites in this tie and rightly so,” Gundogan said. “We accept that role and we’re aware of it. Obviously in the first leg, we want to try to lay the foundation for our progression and that’s what we’re concentrating on.” City still have to beat four more teams before they can think about their new era.