Nobody wants to talk about repressive regime behind the club but Abu Dhabi pushes sport as source of soft structural powerWell, that’s that done. So. What now? Perhaps the funniest moment of the Champions League final at a distant, smoke-tainted Ataturk Stadium was the sight of the tuxedo-clad Hungarian classical musician Adam Gyorgy thundering his way through the tournament tune on a gleaming pitchside grand piano pre-kick-off, trying really hard to give this hammy faux-anthem some verve and twinkle.All the while, a hundred metres off to his left, 10,000 blue-shirted Manchester City fans doggedly booed every flourish, every attempt to inject a little feeling into the occasion. No, Adam. Please. It’s really not you. It’s just, well, it’s kind of...
Substitute gives Manchester City something they lacked and starts the move that led to Rodri’s winner against InterIt felt fitting, in the end, that Phil Foden should have a decisive hand. On a taught, sweaty, occasionally indigestible night at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium Manchester City finally turned the whole world a shade of sky blue, reaching the end point, the final high, of this extraordinary 15-year football-industrial project.City are champions of Europe. If this always seemed inevitable in the abstract, it still feels like moment of double-take, of pure sporting vertigo. A team playing in the same clothes as the one that seemed for so long the embodiment of gallows humour, familiar underachievement, a roll of the eyes in human...
Some tactical tweaks are not overthinking – they’re just thinking, and the Manchester City manager’s decisions paid offNot all tactical tweaks are the result of overthinking. Pep Guardiola did not simply pick the obvious starting XI. He did not pick the starting lineup that had propelled City through the Premier League run-in. He is criticised readily enough when he makes changes and City don’t win; this was an occasion when the change paid off. Guardiola made the necessary adjustment, and was rewarded with his third Champions League.Until mid-February City, by their own remarkable standards, had not had a particularly great season. There were questions – entirely reasonable questions for all the subsequent sneering – about what Erling Haaland did to...
Midfielder’s metamorphosis into a difference maker for Pep Guardiola has come without the smallest hint of ego attachedIt might have felt slightly too good to be true for Ilkay Gündogan when, in the 71st minute of the FA Cup final, he gobbled up a rebound to beat David de Gea for the third time that afternoon. He wheeled away anyway but the flag went up immediately and there were no complaints from the scorer, who smiled knowingly and could reflect that he had not quite returned quickly enough from an offside position.Stan Mortensen’s record as the only player to complete a hat-trick in this fixture at Wembley was preserved and it was one of those rare moments, in recent months,...
Imperious midfielder key to Pep Guardiola’s treble chasers with European success the last leg of journey after FA Cup victoryRodri has the gleaming gold of an FA Cup winners’ medal around his neck and the lettering on his dark Manchester City T-shirt frames it all: “June 3rd 2023. CUP WINNERS. Kings of the City.”It is Saturday evening at Wembley and what most people had foreseen – and not just the City kit guys – has come to pass. With Rodri imperious in midfield again, luxuriating in the form of his life, City have beaten Manchester United to complete the league and Cup Double. It is a sensational achievement and yet one which nobody has properly stopped to acknowledge. Continue reading...