Long before the Abu Dhabi investment, Manchester City briefly enjoyed moderate success. The club from Maine Road was crowned the champion of England in 1968 for only the second time after it pipped city rival Manchester United. A few weeks later, though, United would rain on its parade by winning the European Cup for the first time.
In the following year, before its first-ever European Cup tie against Fenerbahce, City’s assistant coach Malcolm Allison declared that the club ‘would scare Europe to death’. However, in the first round, the Turkish side eliminated City, which wouldn’t play in top-level European competition again until 2011, which is when the Arab money influx began.
There was a time when players used to denote ‘Manchester’, meaning United and not City. City splashed the cash to lure the best and even used billboards to let the world know there was a team in blue in Manchester. In response, the then-Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, famously dismissed the Citizens as ‘noisy neighbours’. With blindingly obvious hindsight, they were making the right noises.
City would go on to scale England, with Europe as its next conquest.
But the Champions League is among the hardest competitions to win. It’s not a given that the top dogs in the league will win the Cup. In the modern Champions League era until 2022, only 16 times has a team managed a League and a Champions League double, and only nine times has a continental treble been achieved since 1956.
While the competition, in its inception as the European Cup and its early avata has thrown up several surprise champions since the turn of the century, it has become increasingly clear that the team with the biggest resources has the best chance of winning it.
The roll call of Champions League winners post-2010, namely Real Madrid (5 times), Barcelona (2), Bayern Munich (2), Chelsea (2), and Liverpool (1), meant that it was only a matter of time before Manchester City, boasting a valuation of $4.99 billion, added its name to the illustrious list. And for City to be considered among the European ‘Elite’, it needed to win the Champions League.
Proving a point: Sir Alex Ferguson, who won 13 Premier League titles at Manchester United, once referred to City as ‘noisy neighbours’. As it turned out, City and its fans were starting to make all the right noises. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
To lead the club to the ‘Holy Grail’, City turned to Pep Guardiola, who had achieved two continental titles with Barcelona in four years, including the obliteration of United in the 2011 final. City made its advances towards the Spaniard in 2012. After a three-year layover in Munich, Guardiola finally signed with the club in the summer of 2016.
And apart from the trophies and the eye-catching football that followed in the Guardiola era, City has also found a protective shield in the Spaniard in the face of various allegations levelled against the club. First, with UEFA’s charges and now the Premier League’s financial breach charges levelled at the Citizens earlier this year, Guardiola was defiant in his support of the club.
Incidentally, the siege mentality reinforced by Guardiola enabled City, in the aftermath of the PL charges, to go on an unbeaten 24-game run in all competitions as it won a third successive league title and reached the finals of the FA Cup and Champions League.
READ: Messi to make Inter Miami debut next month
Not many expected Guardiola to go a decade without a Champions League crown, despite the sizeable backing in the transfer market in his first six years at City. Guardiola, who had made seven successive semifinals with Barcelona and Bayern Munich in his first seven years in top-flight management, failed to reach the last four stage in his first four seasons with City. He came close, making the final in 2021 and the semifinal in 2022.
Much like City, another Petro dollar-fuelled football club that has floundered in its chase to land the coveted European crown is Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain. But unlike at PSG, where the star status of players has repeatedly come in the way of team harmony, City has been wise in using its resources towards building the best possible team under Guardiola.
City passed the chance to sign Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi at 36 and 33, respectively, which would have adversely affected the team’s high-intensity style on the pitch and bloated its wage structure off the pitch. United and PSG, who bit the bullet with Ronaldo and Messi, haven’t looked anywhere near their best in the Champions League.
Guardiola and City, instead, hedged their bets on the burgeoning young talent of Erling Haaland. He is not your archetypal Guardiola forward: a 6’4” striker who won’t press all over the pitch off the ball and involve himself in the build-up play. Haaland averaged nearly 24 touches per game in the Premier League this season. City goalkeeper Ederson Moraes averaged more, with 37. Ederson, though, recorded his most touches in a single campaign (1302) in his six years at City. Guardiola adapted his style by playing to Haaland’s (in pic) strengths by using his height and strength, launching long balls towards him, and playing through balls for the striker to run onto. He repaid the faith with 52 goals in his first season.
Even though Guardiola would play down his failures in the Champions League, deep down, he would have wanted to prove his detractors wrong (Guardiola admitted to having a burner Twitter account after the 2023 Champions League final).
ALSO READ:Joselu delighted at ‘dream’ return to Real Madrid
Despite the hiccups in his methods of management, the ever-thinking Guardiola has sought to evolve the game, and his ‘City Machine’ is no different. Amid the hundreds of goals per season and the stack of victories, there was also the 45-minute dismantling of former Champions League holder Real Madrid.
It was a statement victory for Manchester City against a European elite, reaffirming the belief that ‘it was their time’ at last. The final against Internazionale wasn’t as straightforward as many predicted, but Guardiola and City learned from their past mistakes. They hung in there, persisted before landing the killer blow. City matched the feat of its illustrious neighbour United, which is clinging to the glory days of yore, by winning a continental treble.
And 54 years after he predicted it, Allison’s infamous prophecy about Manchester City has come true.
Europe will now fear them.
Comments
SHARE