Silence swept from one end of the Etihad Stadium to the other, a wave of clear realization. The background noise that the crowd couldn’t help but create – the hum and buzz of 20,000 separate conversations – was gone. The calculations have been done. Conclusion has been drawn.
For much of Wednesday evening, the natural working assumption was that Manchester City would overcome Real Madrid and reach another Champions League semi-final. Pep Guardiola’s Man City side created so many chances that victory really looked like a statistical inevitability. Even when the tie went into extra time, the match still felt strangely tense. City had a chance to get close again. No problem. The next one will appear soon.
The idea that there was any other ending seemed unheard of to anyone, until the moment Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic consecutively missed their penalties, and suddenly City were on the brink. The possibility of elimination was so remote that its appearance was almost a surprise.
Moments later, a topless Antonio Rüdiger threw himself into the enthusiastic crowd of Real Madrid fans. Jude Bellingham is leading the songs in his second language. And Guardiola’s hopes of retaining the Champions League trophy were dashed. He stood in the center circle, looking a bit lost. “What more can we do?” he will ask later.
There was a time when it felt as though Manchester City had achieved so much, so quickly, that they had to start creating challenges to face. Can Guardiola win the title without his striker? Correct. What about midfielders who are essentially midfielders? Also yes. Can he create a team capable of collecting 100 points, winning every domestic trophy or achieving a treble? Yes yes yes.
Big ambitions for this season are the inevitable next step. It turns out City are in pursuit double treble, a phrase that seems not to have been in the football dictionary before this year. Alas, that is now over. Instead, City may have to accept the bitter consolation of becoming the first team in history to win the English championship four years in a row. Oh, and win the FA Cup.
Of course, this is exactly what Man City’s Abu Dhabi-based owners set out to do when they first invested in the club 16 years ago. The aim has always been to create a team so successful, so polished and so perfect that even winning the once-legendary double of English football would be seen as something of an antithesis.
And yet, from the beginning, people also wondered if there was some kind of misunderstanding. The reward for that dominance in football is not widespread applause and affection. Yes, of course, winning more titles means gaining more fans. But traditionally, it also means making more enemies.
That is certainly the experience of previous English football superpowers. Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United all owe their global fan bases to periods of historical dominance, but they can trace the hostility they inspired in almost everyone else to the same. on one’s own. Of course, it’s worth it to them; Their global ambitions go no further than selling shirts.
City’s benefactors, on the other hand, have rather more complex motives. Abu Dhabi did not buy the club because Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan just did Actually into football. It’s a marketing game, a real estate game, an economic game, a mechanism to gain global influence.
But to a large or small extent, it all depends on Man City’s victory. Mediocrity does not attract investors to your diverse economy or counter suggestions that your human rights record may be suboptimal. There is no heart and mind at No. 12. The Manchester City project will only succeed if the club becomes a symbol of excellence.
Of course, that’s exactly what happened. Abu Dhabi has spent a lot of money on players, infrastructure and executives. (During Wednesday’s penalty shootout, City’s coaching staff and substitute players lined up on the sidelines: There were 40 of them.)
The City’s ownership group has overturned every convention, no matter the cost, push every boundary. (It’s also not always particularly concerned with following the rules, The Premier League has charged a fee.) It has built a multi-club network spread across the globe. They hired Guardiola, the best coach of his generation, and transformed the club to his exact characteristics.
It worked. City, as the club approved slogan, is “the best team in the country and in the whole world”. It has the titles to prove it. But strangely, it has no hatred. For a hegemon, City doesn’t seem to generate much hatred. There is certainly no equivalent the Anyone But United movement that was brief and admittedly a bit bitter, popular around the turn of the century.
The most reasonable explanation for this is that the playing style inculcated by Guardiola is so smooth, creative and charming that it is impossible not to like. Putting aside this overestimation of football rationality, it’s not true: Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United also play thrilling football. And everyone hates them.
More convincing is the suggestion that, perhaps subconsciously, fans of all but Man City’s direct rivals understand that the club does not have to follow the same rules as others .
Not in the sense that at some point City will have to deny 115 allegations of breaching Premier League financial rules that have existed for more than a year, but in the sense that it is not like other clubs: clean will and smooth, designed with scientific precision and bottomless functional resources. The city exists in a world apart.
This sentiment was captured perfectly by Dario Minden, spokesman for Unsere Kurve, an umbrella group for organized German fans, when he tried to explain why – according to somehow – it’s almost better for Bayern Munich Bundesliga championthan anyone else.
Of course, Bayern also has a huge financial advantage. For German fans, it seems to be a different animal than everyone else. “If Bayern wins,” said Minden, an Eintracht Frankfurt fan, “almost no one wins.” The success of a direct competitor, of a peer, may sting, but there’s no point wondering why the lottery winner has a nicer house than you.
However, even this understanding seems incomplete. Last week, Barney Ronay recommended in The Guardian that the exploits of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have changed the standards by which we judge footballers. Their excellence was so consistent, he wrote, that a single bad game was enough to get their successors accused of cheating.
Perhaps City have also changed the way we evaluate clubs. Guardiola’s team has not lost a match in the last 28 matches. (Defeat on penalties, mentally if not technically, does not count.) Rodri, the team’s central midfielder, has not lost a match for City in more than a year. Both of these are not normal.
But Guardiola and his players have made a habit of these kinds of feats, like Messi and Ronaldo, they have changed our expectations of what it takes to win a championship, of what it means to “ good”. In doing so, they changed – raised – the standard to which everyone else was held.
And so, when Arsenal or Liverpool or anyone else fails, the focus tends to be on their supposed flaws, rather than City’s unassailable position. There’s no chance of harboring a new grudge – especially when there are old grudges to maintain.
In the next few weeks, despite the defeat against Real Madrid, Manchester City will likely score another double, confirm another piece of history, and set another high record. Its fans will understandably celebrate, and fans of its defeated rival will mourn. For most, however, it seems the tide of awareness has not yet broken.
The few are chosen
And finally, the tournament the world has been waiting for begins to form. ARE NOT, not that. Neither that thing. This expanded FIFA Club World Cup is scheduled to be held, like all other major soccer tournaments, in the United States in 2025.
Strictly speaking, as a journalist in our country early In the 1940s, I should have been vehemently opposed to the idea of expanding the FIFA Club World Cup. For example, the fact that the idea for it came from Gianni Infantino is generally a red flag. And there’s a very obvious problem with it: The huge amount of money the tournament is expected to generate for the 24 participating teams seems like the kind of windfall that could seriously distort the tournaments. domestically, especially in Asia, Africa and South America.
Despite all that, I remain essentially agnostic. Giving more teams from outside Europe the opportunity to meet teams from Europe – and yes, rewarding them financially – is a positive step. It might help teams like Palmeiras, one of the confirmed South American participants, keep its players out of Europe’s clutches for a little longer, and that’s a Good Thing.
However, even then, the list of European participants seems a bit strange. They were selected, according to FIFA criteria, based on their performance in Europe over the past four years. Each country is allowed a maximum of two teams.
This makes sense in theory, but it means that Juventus, currently not one of the two strongest teams in Serie A, will be one of Italy’s representatives, and Chelsea, who have spent most of their time time in the past two years to become a highlight, will stand tall on behalf of the Premier League. FC Porto and Benfica are also there, which would seem to dwarf the status of Portuguese football.
Any new league needs immediate legitimacy to survive. By definition, someone aspiring to be crowned world champion must feel exclusive and selected – an accurate reflection of the balance of power in football over the past four years. And, with all due respect, the prospect of Chelsea meeting Juventus in the quarter-finals next summer is effectively nonexistent.
Admirable honesty
Ilkay Gundogan could have cried foul like everyone else. He can blame the referee. He might raise eyebrows and imply that Barcelona have been knocked out of the Champions League by some nefarious alliance of dark forces. After all, that kind of rhetoric has appeared so often at the club in recent years that you can only assume it is part of the club’s media training.
Instead, Gundogan took out his anger on his teammates. He didn’t name names, of course, but he made it clear that he thought Ronald Araújo only had himself to blame for being sent off against Paris St.-Germain on Tuesday; that João Cancelo was foolish to concede a cheap, unnecessary penalty; and that whoever was tasked with denying Vitinha had 20 meters of grass and around five minutes to position himself before his turnaround goal could have done better.
Players, managers and executives – and everyone else involved in football – too often take the easy route. They look for excuses and hunt for scapegoats. (The fact that the blame often falls on referees is a major factor in creating the toxic environment in which officials currently work.) Ultimately, it all doesn’t sit well with professional athletes. It’s your performance. Own it. Admit your mistakes, admit that you can do better, try harder. As Gundogan proves, you’ll feel incredibly good doing so.
