The best of the tournament won, not the best of the final. “That’s football”, “that’s football”, says the Irishman in his non-explanation that explains everything. This is the exciting, whimsical, illogical and surprising football. Manchester City crown fifteen years of patient search since its virtual refoundation in 2008: they won the treble, but, above all, the precious third gem of the most brilliant necklace that can be worn: the Champions League, which, added to the Premier League and the English Cup, make up the most lavish showcase that any club in the cradle of baseball can exhibit. Only Manchester United, his eternal rival, achieved such a feat, it was in 1999. Although for Pep Guardiola it is not new: in 2009 he linked the sextet with Barcelona.
Undefeated champion with 8 wins and 5 draws, 33 goals for and just 5 against, the numbers smile at him and proclaim him a great monarch. The cup that had escaped him by a hair in 2021 at the hands of Chelsea he drank now. Without stars, with good or very good interpreters, without spending hundreds of millions more than their rivals, two labels that Madrid journalism has invented for Guardiola to try to discredit him. But Pep is the best in history. It happens that he is Catalan, that is annoying in the capital.
– See Rodri’s goal that gave Manchester City the Champions League title
He is number one and he proves it again. His team plays, has a defined style, a performance that is difficult for rivals to unravel, which under the Turkish sky did not shine as usual, but knew how to score a goal and win. It is Guardiola’s 35th title. And he can keep adding, he is young, he loves what he does, he does not get fed up with success and he has, among many others, the virtue of re-motivating his troops after winning and winning.
Josep Guardiola, with the ‘Orejona’, again.
Georgi Licovski. efe
The most difficult thing to maintain any winning streak is to maintain the hunger for triumph, the eye of the tiger. He does it with his players and with himself. He is insatiable. His detractors, who have millions, ask him to do the same with Elche or Numancia, heh… they are so cute.
A gray party, but an impeccable campaign
For the festivals that City usually offers, it was a gray, forgettable triumph, without the gala dress. Unite to zero barely. The mental fatigue of their players was noted, in 21 days they played virtually three finals: against Chelsea to win the local championship, against United to lift the English Cup and now against Inter. The footballer recovers physically from one week to the next, the mind does not. Reigniting the desire for victory is like asking the exhausted, poorly eaten and poorly slept soldier to take up his rifle and return to the charge. And it was City’s 60th game of the season.
Such an effort led to a 21-day funnel to define the three crowns. Inter, their loser, sold their skin dearly, left their entire soul and earned the sympathy of the world. He was a very brave Inter, a bear that almost realized the hunter. If we analyze goal situations, he had four very clear ones against two for City in the 98 minutes that the game lasted. And 14 shots for the Italian team compared to 7 for the English. He was millimeters from the feat, but he couldn’t.
Inter took him by surprise at City in the first act, nothing extraordinary, with high pressure, where City’s crochet fabric began. It interrupted the articulation of the game. Without any revolutionary tactics, just a lot of concentration, firmness, anticipation, always getting on top of the pitcher and the catcher. It comes from the year ’30; before they called it “squeezing the marks”. To this was added the striking imprecision in the passes of the Ciudadano team. In this context, the City was like someone who gets into the car in a hurry, turns the key to start it and the engine makes brrrrmmmm, brrrrmmmm, but it doesn’t start. He couldn’t get the game going. His game, that plot of precise passes that gives him territorial and psychological control over the opponent until he finds the hole. The City is unknown, not even close to the overwhelming champion team of the Premier, of the Cup and that crushed Bayern and Madrid. De Bruyne’s injury at 35′ was a blow for the sky-blues. The Belgian has been his franchise player for years, he plays and plays, creates danger, converts. It was good for Inter.
– Pep Guardiola challenges Real Madrid after winning the Champions League with Manchester City
On that stage, there were some notable performances in the Nerazzurri squad such as Dimarco, Barella, Bastoni and Acerbi. The others, attentive, all plugged in. But Inter did not finish off the goal in those first 47 minutes. And the Mancunian eleven had nothing left over, just a left foot from Haaland with a certain spice that Onana stopped without anguish.
It did not change the development, but the game began to break. When the clock showed 58′ Akanji fell asleep on a long ball and Lautaro Martínez stole his wallet, went alone and finished off the goal, although in a very oblique position and Ederson contained, beginning to be a decisive figure.
Rodri celebrates the Manchester City title.
That’s where City, Guardiola, the club project, everyone found peace. And Inter had no choice but to get out of the trenches and attack with a clean bayonet. And he went upstairs with fervor, with greatness, convinced that he could. And he cornered City. He was denied the goal twice in such an incredible way that it is hard to understand how the ball did not enter. The last quarter of an hour was of a tension of ten thousand volts, worthy of a definition of Champions. And in Ederson’s last cover, the interista chance died. Sad, because he had done a lot and deserved, at least, the extension.
Uefa gave the final to Polish referee Szimon Marciniak, the same as the Argentina-France clash in Qatar. It means that Fifa saw him outstanding in the World Cup. And again it was flawless, no questionable flaws. In their favor, the protagonists behaved well.
Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, offered its ancient charm to tens of thousands of Englishmen and Italians. He showed his most modern face to receive them, and the Champions League. And he pleased, and complied. She was an efficient hostess, she threw a cloak of oblivion over the serious incidents in Paris last year, which almost became a tragedy. Good.
The City thing is a goldsmith’s task on the part of its Emirati owners. They landed on September 1, 2008 in an entity that had 11 relegations (it even went to the Third Division, something that never happened to any of the big European clubs). They drew up a long-term plan. They bought the club for 250 million dollars and injected 1,000 million pounds into infrastructure, players and coaches. Today it is worth 7,000 million. In between they won 20 trophies, including 7 Premier, 3 FA Cup, 6 League Cup, 3 Community Shield and now this Champions League. They also achieved several runners-up. Always looking for excellence. They expanded and own eleven other City-branded clubs on four continents. Now they sell more players than they buy. Signing cracks is just a small facet of the City organization.
“This is the triumph of a club that has been building step by step for years to get to this. And it’s my turn to score the winning goal. I never imagined it. I remember Fernandinho, Agüero, Kompany… of so many players who contributed to achieve this”, expressed Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, the one who sent the right hand to glory.
last tango…
Jorge Barraza
For the time
@JorgeBarrazaOK
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#City #shook #hands #glory #Tango #opinion
