Pep Guardiola’s team are applying a top-down version of how to win, imposed by the will of a sovereign state
History is what happens when you’re busy making plans about how to stop Erling Haaland. After nine months of fractured storylines, the European club season is finally narrowing to a point. For all the broken notes, the time-jumps, the jetlag along the way, we could now be facing an endgame of rare clarity, a moment where the entire horizon turns a shade of sky blue.
Manchester City may still end up with nothing this season, no pots to wave, no bobbing podium huddles. But they are also within a sustained final push of winning it all, of taking that almost-unprecedented treble of Champions League, FA Cup and Premier League.
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