Man City treble would be a triumph of unlimited spending

Opinion

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This article was published 21/04/2023 (871 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There has never been much mystery behind the recent success of Manchester City.

Their partisans might point to the 2012 appointments of CEO Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain, and the ex-Barcelona pair has undoubtedly helped turn the 11-times relegated outfit into a bona fide juggernaut. But neither executive would’ve so much as considered the club to be a serious employer were it not for the resources backing it.

No, the foundational transformation at Eastlands came almost 15 years ago when Sheikh Mansour and his Abu Dhabi United Group purchased the club and injected unprecedented sums into its playing personnel. They’ve since filled the cabinet with six Premier League titles, two FA Cups, six league cups and three Community Shields.

Begiristain, to his credit, has spent the Abu Dhabi money remarkably well, and it’s also true that manager Pep Guardiola has his sides playing some of the most reliably watchable stuff in Europe. But the primary takeaway from the City project is nevertheless the quite predictable confirmation that money can buy pretty much anything, and lots of money can buy lots of everything. Maybe even the Champions League.

Maybe even the treble.

As it stands, the trophies that make up that rarest of achievements are each within City’s grasp. Win out, and they’ll lift all three. Stumble once, and the chance is likely gone. Such are the margins when the prize is so extraordinary. And, perhaps appropriately, the opponents in their way this spring represent the establishment they so desperately want to join, the heritage for which they’ve bought a shortcut.

Consider their path to that elusive European Cup — the pursuit of which brought two-time winner Guardiola to Etihad Stadium in the first place.

It will shortly take them to Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, home of record champions and current holders Real Madrid. Vanquishing the original and natural claimants to the silverware was always going to be a fitting chapter in City’s Champions League crucible, and some very recent history has only made it all the more compelling.

In the weeks before they won their domestic titles last season, the two sides clashed in the semi-finals of the Champions League — just as they’ll do this May 9th and 17th. City prevailed 4-3 in a breathless first leg in Manchester, and in the return match Madrid required a stoppage-time equalizer from Rodrygo and extra-time winner from the heroic Karim Benzema to advance.

Not quite 12 months on, the Spanish giants have all but conceded La Liga to Barcelona and have prevailed in just two of their last seven top-flight encounters. City, meanwhile, are unbeaten in 15 matches across all competition and possess in Erling Haaland a weapon few adversaries have been able to defend this term. In other words, it’s now or never.

Should they beat Real Madrid and progress to the final, awaiting them in Istanbul will be one of the reinvigorated Milan clubs.

Inter and AC Milan have traded Scudetto triumphs the last two campaigns, and, it goes without saying, are among the most storied clubs in football history. In 1963 AC Milan became just the third team to win the European Cup when a lineup including Cesare Maldini, Giovanni Trapattoni and Gianni Rivera prevailed over Eusebio’s Benfica. Helenio Herrera’s Grande Inter, featuring Amando Picchi and Sandro Mazzola, hoisted the two after that. Names like Paolo Maldini, Marco van Basten, Javier Zanetti and Wesley Sneijder are also synonymous with the Derby della Madonnina rivals, who’ve won the competition 10 times between them.

Having already overcome Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, a Champions League victory that would also have City beat Real Madrid and either the Rossoneri or Nerazzurri would certainly have some romance to it. And, at least for Guardiola and his players, some hard-won justice.

As would the treble.

Though trailing Arsenal in the Premier League standings, Manchester City have games in hand and will host the Gunners on Wednesday (2:00 p.m., FuboTV) in a tilt that may well determine the destination of the title. Now, the London side might well want to forget a lot of the last 20 years, but their 31 trophies (minus the Shields) still dwarfs City’s haul, and they retain the massive, enduring, multi-continent following that few clubs have ever attained — and that City covets.

Leapfrogging Arsenal to win the title would be another poetic piece in the treble puzzle, but then there is the last one.

By the third week of May, City will have played Real Madrid and will know whether the trophy trio is still on. Ten or so days after that, they’ll hope to have won the league. Which would mean, incredibly, that a prospective FA Cup final against Manchester United would be the penultimate one-off to test whether they’re treble-worthy, and one administered by the only club to have managed the feat.

Just imagine. In the decade since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, one of the only things United have been able to hold over their local rivals is the treble they won in 1999. Liverpool flirted with it a year ago, but the closest any club have really come since the turn of the century was United, themselves, in 2008. Take that bragging right from the Red Devils, and City will well and truly have supplanted them.

Of course, there’s a couple things that have to happen to set up a June 3 Manchester Derby at Wembley. United, trounced by Sevilla during the week, must knock out a very good Brighton side on Sunday (10:30 a.m., Sportsnet). City, meanwhile, need to eliminate Sheffield United today (10:45 a.m., Sportsnet).

The Champions League, the domestic honours, the treble—it’s all in City’s hands. On the pitch, they control their own destiny. In purely football terms, they could be about to match what was once assumed matchless. The money they’ve spent will have acquired all that it could.

Which is still not everything.

Manchester City have yet to sell out the Etihad for a Premier League home game this season. They’ve not had multiple sell-outs in nine. The ground will be full for Real Madrid’s visit next month, but only after tickets were sold at a discount. They rank 21st in average attendance worldwide this term, behind West Ham, Celtic and Flamengo and slightly above Hamburg, who play in Germany’s second division.

Win it all — even in style — and it’ll mean the world to a little local sliver. From Soriano, Begiristain and Guardiola to Haaland, de Bruyne, Rodri and all the rest, City have done almost everything right; they might even be a model of how to run a club.

But strip away their mystery, which isn’t hard to do, and you’re left with something fake. It might just be that all the money in the world can’t turn pretend into real.

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