MANCHESTER City stand 90 minutes from greatness, a football Treble that will never be forgotten.
Yet for rival fans, no matter what Pep Guardiola’s side do against Inter Milan in Istanbul’s Champions League Final tonight, their achievement will ALWAYS be tainted.
City are brilliant.
No question.
A team you love to watch.
Glorious in possession.
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Furious in regaining the ball.
Deadly as a stiletto.
The ultimate modern side.
But they are also a club whose willingness to push financial regulations to the absolute limit — and allegedly far beyond them — means many will always want an asterisk next to the list of trophies by their name.
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Bankrolled by Sheikh Mansour and the limitless riches of Abu Dhabi’s oil wells, able to attract the greatest manager and best players, City’s ambition is clear.
Not just in this country either, with the club the pinnacle of a 12-team structure that spans the globe from China and Japan, through India, to the US, Uruguay, Brazil and Australia.
It is City, though, a club that was once a byword for catastrophe and one that lived for two decades in the shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson’s achievements on the other side of the city, that takes the attention.
Both on the field, where they are the Prem’s dominant force and red-hot favourites to finally land the “Cup with the Big Ears” tonight.
And, controversially, off it as well.
In February, following a four-year probe, the Premier League announced City were accused of 115 breaches of league rules.
A staggering number of allegations, slipped out in a simple press release on the League’s website — but which still saw City bemoaning it had been “leaked”.
Relentless art form
Charges included claims that the Etihad outfit hid the true source of the club’s funding.
Also that City had only partially declared the salaries of players and former manager Roberto Mancini, broke Uefa AND Prem financial rules and deliberately and repeatedly obstructed the League’s investigation.
Just as when Uefa charged and initially banned them for similar alleged offences, City did what they always do on the pitch, attack.
First of all was the claim the allegations had been “leaked”.
Exactly the same complaint they made about Uefa’s process.
The charges, insisted City, would be met with a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” that would “put this matter to rest once and for all”.
That approach worked when the sport’s Court of Arbitration threw out the Uefa sanctions in 2020, ruling by a 2-1 majority that many of the charges were time-barred and others “not proven” — although it judged that City had failed to co-operate with the initial inquiry.
Manager Guardiola last month demanded the Prem commission sit to hear the case imminently.
The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss, whose obsession with winning the Champions League in a team WITHOUT Lionel Messi is unquestioned, said: “We would like this done as soon as possible.
“We would love it tomorrow, this afternoon. Let’s go. Don’t wait two years. Why don’t we do it quicker?
“In 24 hours, sit down with the lawyers present. Then, if the club has done something wrong, everybody will know.
“But if, as we believed as a club for many years, we have done things in the right way, then the people will stop talking about it.”
Yet for all that bluster, Pep Guardiola must have known about the club’s demand that the Arsenal-supporting barrister likely to lead the panel should stand down.
And of their complaints about the validity of the charges, arguing about recent changes in the Prem rulebook that mandate clubs and officials to answer questions and provide all information when requested to by League officers.
City’s hierarchy have not only hired the best manager and team.
They are willing to pay for the best lawyers, too.
Lord Pannick KC, recently spotted next to Boris Johnson during his uncomfortable grilling by MPs who could suspend him from the Commons, charges a minimum £5,000 per day.
He will be willing to do whatever it takes, within the law, to ensure a victory for his client.
The charges saw City’s Prem rivals unite in furious indignation, demanding consequences well before the case ever comes to determination, which could still be another three or four years away.
With unprecedented fines and even the prospect of a points deduction, stripped titles and relegation hanging over them, the City players might have been excused for losing their focus.
Instead, they have turned winning into a relentless art form.
Since the charges were laid, City have played 27 games in three competitions.
They have won 21 and lost just one — a Prem match at Brentford after the title had already been sealed, scoring 72 and conceding just 15 in the process.
But City under Guardiola are more than just an uncompromising victory machine.
Far more.
They are truly football’s version of shock and awe, a mesmerising, bewildering, mind-spinning fusion of power and glory.
Guardiola has taken John Stones, England’s best central defender, and turned him into a ball-playing midfield superstar.
Yorkshire grit but Catalan majesty.
Look, too, at the development of Jack Grealish, who has gone from being a foppish outsider, struggling for game time and to justify his £100million transfer fee from Aston Villa, into an integral part of City’s starting side.
The smile of delight when he sees the ball is shared by every Sky Blue fan.
Belgian Kevin de Bruyne, Germany’s Ilkay Gundogan and Portuguese schemer Bernardo Silva offer menace and magic.
Gundogan broke an all-time FA Cup Final record when he scored after just 12 seconds in last weekend’s Wembley win over Manchester United, the second leg of that longed-for Treble.
And for sheer explosive, frightening attacking intensity, allied to a goal sense that few in the history of the game possess, striker Erling Haaland has proved he is a true force of nature.
Although, plenty are less sure about those silk pyjamas he wore for City’s title celebrations.
Much of that is down to the man who embodies managerial majesty.
Guardiola’s Barcelona side were the hallmark of the beautiful game a decade ago, the Nou Camp necromancers weaving spell after spell.
They won the Champions League — beating Manchester United both times — in 2009 and 2011.
And they were defeated only by a combination of Jose Mourinho, Inter Milan and the Icelandic volcano that meant they had to take the coach to Italy rather than fly, in 2010.
England’s greatest
Yet, perhaps, irrespective of the huge sums laid out since the Abu Dhabi takeover in 2008, this team is his greatest — the ultimate example of a tactician putting the pieces together to create something truly extraordinary.
Pep is more than demanding, even if his focus is occasionally so complete that he does not even see people when he walks past them in the City corridors.
He insists that it is about “making people happy” rather than his “legacy”.
But if the two things mutually co-exist, then that is an acceptable compromise.
The club’s success has cemented Manchester’s status as one of the most famous footballing cities in the world — and has helped transform the post-industrial wasteland of East Manchester.
The owners have built around 6,000 affordable homes in the area in a £1billion redevelopment deal.
And the Manchester Evening News reported in 2021 how almost 30 new hotels were expected to be built by the end of this year to accommodate the growth in tourism.
Earlier this year, the club also submitted a £300million planning application that includes expanding the Etihad stadium capacity above 60,000, and adding a hotel, sky bar and stadium roof walk experience.
There will also be space for some businesses to work at the stadium, which is still owned by the council, with City paying rent of at least £4million a year.
If all that matters is the football, then there is no doubt who you should be backing in Istanbul.
England’s greatest, City are now the gold standard.
Technically outstanding.
Innovative.
Compelling viewing.
The creme of the Prem creme.
And four of England manager Gareth Southgate’s preferred players are critical elements in Guardiola’s masterplan, even if Phil Foden has played a lesser role this season.
Others, though, will never be won over by what happens on the pitch.
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Tonight, they will be “black and blue”, the colours of Inter.
If they feel similarly bruised by a Guardiola triumph, nobody at City will care.
‘It will be long night but we’ll be champs’
SINGER and City fan Noel Gallagher is rooting for Man City to take the Treble.
The 56-year-old says: “We’ve taken it step by step, but this is it now, it’s just about this one game. In Italy, where getting beaten is sacrilege, Inter lost 12 times in the league, so they’re used to losing, which bodes well for City.
“The Italian mindset is ‘don’t lose’ and they will be very proud of forgetting their usual style and playing for penalties from the first minute if that’s the way they think they can win.
“If they do that, it is up to City to come up with the answers.
“If we play like we did against Real Madrid then there is not a team in the world that can get near us. I think it will be a long night, but City will win in end.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
