As Manchester City await the Champions League draw, the rest of Europe looks on to see how the Istanbul triumph will be looked back on
Bernardo Silva makes it 2-0 for Manchester City against Real Madrid (Image: Getty)
In many ways, Manchester City’s triumph in Istanbul was the end of a cycle for the club.
After disappointment two years previously in the Champions League final against Chelsea, this time even owner Sheikh Mansour was in attendance for just his second-ever match to witness the Blues win the one major trophy that had always eluded them.
It had taken 15 years and over £1bn in investments, yet City had become not just the dominant force in English football but also, finally, kings of Europe. In case that wasn’t enough, it had been achieved as the third and most spectacular leg of a Treble – an achievement only managed once before by an English team.
The sense of relief poured out of everybody connected to the club as the final whistle went at the Ataturk Stadium as fans and players alike gleefully celebrated completing something that they never dreamed was possible. “Seven years of fighting, we did it. We did it, Kev! Now we have it!” cried an emotional Pep Guardiola on the pitch with star midfielder Kevin De Bruyne.
And yet, by the time chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak had seen his manager on the pitch, the question that will fascinate the game and send dread around the rest of Europe had been spoken about: what if this was a beginning as much as an ending? What if this was in fact a coronation that marked the start of a reign?
City had for years before been one of the best teams in Europe, only to suffer an agonising defeat whenever it looked like they would mark that with the most prized silverware in the game. They may have lost some experienced players, but with a competitive squad and the genius of Guardiola there is no reason why the Blues cannot make it back-to-back triumphs.
They will start as favourites for the trophy possibly for the first time throughout Europe, if not for their win over Inter than their dismantling of giants Bayern and Real in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. Both of those ties presented huge physical and mental hurdles for City to overcome, and they saved the best until last.
Having dug in with every last fingernail at the Bernabeu to claw back a draw from what could have been a damaging defeat, the 4-0 blitz of the European kings at the Etihad was the type of performance that can define an era. There had been no talk of a changing of the established guard after the pulsating first leg, yet so complete was the annihilation in the return fixture it felt as though an entire Real team had lost their aura.
Guardiola knows about these type of matches of course, having himself been part of a few before he took over in Manchester. The 2011 final win over Manchester United was an incredible triumph that paved the way for a decade of dominance for Spanish teams in Europe, and he was in his first season at Bayern when they were blown away 4-0 by eventual competition winners Real Madrid.
Whether or not City’s pasting is looked back on as the catalyst for bigger things remains to be seen, although it is enough of a possibility that it had already crossed the minds of club executives when the final whistle blew in Istanbul. Guardiola laughed off his chairman’s reminder that this season’s final is at Wembley, but he will have already noted it regardless.
City of course know that luck plays a huge role in determining the winners every year, and as skilled as their backroom staff are it was fortunate that they suffered few injuries in the final months of the campaign. Despite revisions every season to improve things, it only took the first weekend of the Premier League to show that inexplicable refereeing decisions still exist.
There have already been injury issues for the Blues this season, and it has been a transfer window that has removed bodies and experience from the squad. However, the start in the Premier League and the Super Cup triumph have shown that City are still a formidable outfit.
Their biggest issue in Europe before last season had been their strength against rivals in the Premier League – knowing how to get over the line. Now they have done that, it gets a little harder for everyone else to stop them.
As well as having the best coach in the game and the best striker among a talented squad, there is also a sense that the fans have turned towards Europe. Where for years they preferred to focus on domestic competitions, now England has been well and truly conquered now their sights are set on grander prizes.
The Premier League of course will always be a priority, but it is usually a consequence of playing well in the league that carries City with momentum into their big European nights. It is difficult to think that Bayern and Real could have been swept away in quite the same way if the team were scratching around for form in other competitions.
Tasking City with starting a new era of dominance is of course thankless in the same way that the challenge after one Premier Legaue was to win another. Such conversations, however, are only to see how far the team can go.
In what can probably be classed as the third iteration of Guardiola’s City, there is no question that they will go down as one of the best in the history of the game (although that may require some revision if the Premier League’s charges against the club are proven). The only question is how high they will be on the all-time list.
City have already broken records in English football and set new standards that will are unlikely to be seen again for at least a very long time once Guardiola decides he has had his time. There are few frontiers left to cross there, although winning four consecutive titles would obviously take them to a place nobody has ever managed.
It is Europe where there is more space left for City to make their mark. The Super Cup was a nice start to consolidate their Champions League final victory but it will be in the spring of 2024 when Guardiola and his players really have the opportunity to put something special together.
No side will want to face them in the knockout draw, and routes to the trophy don’t get much more difficult than the gauntlet City faced this year to claim their first success. There are better times than others to face them in the calendar, yet there is never a good time.
Having finally got the monkey off the back of both the club and manager, City can move forward without baggage in their efforts to defend the Champions League. It will not be remotely easy, but plenty is already in place for the Blues to make Istanbul remembered as a beginning as much as an ending in the timeline of their successes.
