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da esoccer bet： “The future is bleak, because there is no way we can improve on what we have achieved so far.”
Pep Guardiola said those very words after Barcelona won the Club World Cup in 2009. The game, against Estudiantes, was nondescript, really, with few on these shores even paying it much mind. But in Catalonia it sparked wild celebrations and an uncharacteristically downbeat response from Guardiola. The reason? It confirmed that Barcelona had won six trophies in 2009. Six. For those counting, that’s La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey at the end of the 2008-09 campaign and, at the beginning of 2009-10, the Supercopa de Espana, the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup.
Guardiola had told his biographer, Guillem Balague, that he motivated his men by telling them they would be “eternal” if they won the Club World Cup. It was the first time they had won the competition.
Guardiola left Barcelona in 2012. At the end of his reign, he had won 13 trophies, having established a staggering stranglehold on the Spanish game.
What Guardiola has done since is enjoy a sabbatical, move to Manchester City, achieve a century of Premier League points and, this season, bring the excitement of the title race to a juddering halt.
He is a visionary, of course, a genius of a manager capable of building teams into irrepressible winning machines. City, at this point in time, are on a 12-game winning run. They last dropped points in the Premier League on January 29, losing 2-1 to Newcastle United. In the run since they have thumped Chelsea 6-0, beaten Arsenal 3-1 and also enjoyed victories over both Manchester United and title rivals Liverpool.
They have also won the Carabao Cup and will play in the FA Cup final in May. They are out of the Champions League but even that came after a 4-3 home victory over Tottenham Hotspur.
It is the Premier League, though, where the story is, and where the boredom lies.
City are currently slugging it out with Liverpool at the top of the table. They are two of the greatest teams the Premier League has ever seen and this, in turn, should be the most exciting title race in history.
Liverpool have 91 points but are second. In all but two seasons in Premier League history – last season, when City clocked 100, and 2004-05, when Chelsea won 95 points – they would have won the competition already. They have already amassed one more point than Arsenal’s Invincibles. They are 12 clear of the tally amassed by Manchester United’s treble winners. City, though, are a point clear. They have 92 and could end the season with 98. The only other team to ever better such a tally was, inevitably, Pep’s vintage from last season.
Why, then, is it so dull?
It has been grindingly predictable as a race. City, in particular, have reverted to their win-by-all-costs mantra that has so characterised the best teams in the league. Their 1-0 win over Burnley at the weekend was a prime example of this; it was three more points, yes, and it leaves City two wins away from the title, but they were not convincing, they did not play well and it was not particularly good to watch, with Burnley reduced to merely defending for their lives.
Liverpool have played their part in this but they are more thrilling to watch, more exciting, more explosive. They have pace in attack and defence but they have flaws too; were it not for Virgil van Dijk, they would probably be scrapping for Champions League football and the Premier League trophy would already be sitting in the Etihad Stadium.
City, though, are almost omnipotent. They move the ball quickly and precisely but they are patient almost to a fault and have become synonymous with the ‘cut-back goal’, when a winger reaches the byline, fires the ball across the six-yard box and either Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling or another of City’s cherry-picked superstars taps it in. It works but it’s a bit like exploiting a cheat code that isn’t available to anyone else.
Indeed, the best title races have featured fallibility. Think of Manchester United and City duking it out in 2011-12, the year of Aguerroooooooo. United were eight points clear with six games remaining. A loss against Wigan Athletic and a chaotic, pulsating and simply brilliant 4-4 draw with Everton, followed by a derby defeat to City, saw Roberto Mancini’s side back on top. You don’t need reminding about what happened on the final day. The drama was only added to by the context of the season before it.
Look, too, at 2013-14, when City again swooped in to snatch the crown, this time from Liverpool, their rivals this year. Brendan Rodgers’ side, featuring the likes of Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard, were five points clear of Chelsea and nine ahead of City – who had two games in hand – after a 3-2 win over Norwich City on April 20th. A loss to Chelsea was followed by that collapse at Crystal Palace and, poof, the title had gone.
Again, set against the context of the season before it, this was genuinely thrilling stuff for the neutral.
But this season, there has been no such drama. This title race has just been two very good teams who are very good at winning football matches, winning football matches. City play Leicester and Brighton & Hove Albion in their final two matches, while the Reds take on Newcastle United and Wolves. Both teams are likely to win out because that is just what they do.
And Guardiola will be given the Premier League trophy. He may well weep, just as he did in 2009.
For what else is there to do but merely go and win it again? The competition – the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur – either don’t have the financial clout or the ability in the starting XI to match the feats of City and the Reds next season.
So we may see a duopoly established, with Guardiola yet again establishing a stranglehold.
City fans, surely, will love it. But the rest of us – we’ll call it what it is: boring.