THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE is an extract from ‘Standing Alone’
Is it still too soon? It might be a while before the pain fades but, without going fully ‘York away’ about it, Manchester City didn’t have a bad old season, did they?
Expectations are much higher now than when City travelled to Bootham Crescent, and lost 2-1, as a mid-table third division side in December 1998; the players are some of the best in the world, the manager is a genius, so the argument that things were much worse in years gone isn’t really applicable.
Losing Saturday’s Champions League final to Chelsea, particularly in that manner, was galling. It’s impossible to dismiss the feeling that this season could’ve been so much better. And with the Premier League title triumph so well analysed, celebrated so joyously the previous weekend and stored away in club history, it is hard to look past what happened in Porto less than 72 hours ago. It’s still raw.
As one homebound fan at the airport afterwards put it, “I’m not angry, I’m just sad.” The two trophies City won this season are little consolation when those emotions are in play. That’s football.
And yet, it’s also impossible to overlook all the factors that led to City playing 61 out of a possible 62 games this season, coming closer to winning every trophy up for grabs than any English club has ever managed.
Pep Guardiola’s reaction to the defeat has been similar: last season, when City were eliminated by Lyon, he didn’t speak to the players at all, but at the weekend he went around the squad to congratulate them on a fine season, although the pain of how it ended was evident.
Maybe in a few days it will all be easier to digest. Rival fans will hold onto Porto forever but few clubs are ready to challenge City, as long as they make the necessary changes to their squad this summer. It was certainly the case over the duration of the season.
City are brilliant and while losing Saturday’s final was crushing, it can’t whitewash the previous six months of good work, the years before that, or the feeling they can go even further next season.
There is a new, traumatic chapter to City and Guardiola’s Champions League story but the fact remains they got further in the competition than they had done previously, and they deserved to do so. They showed us things along their route to the final that were worth enjoying at the time and that bode well for the future.
It does sound a bit like loser talk but before this season, people wondered if they would ever get past a European quarter-final under Guardiola. Inevitably, that adds to the sense that the final was a big opportunity wasted (because it was), but it’s still easy to see growth and huge potential.
All the positive stuff previously said about this team still applies. Their mid-season turnaround remains mightily impressive. If it weren’t for that, they wouldn’t have been playing Chelsea in Porto in the first place. If it weren’t for that turnaround, Guardiola and City would have bigger problems to deal with this summer than they do. And if it weren’t for Guardiola, City wouldn’t have won so many trophies over the past five years.
He might infuriate with his selections once or twice per season, but it looks like that’s just part of the deal with him. The rest of it is pretty sweet. There’s nobody around who could do the job better.
It’s like Kevin De Bruyne playing poorly in the final: you wouldn’t swap him for anybody anyway, so you just have to accept it. It doesn’t mean he’s not a great player. Lionel Messi hasn’t won a World Cup. The original Ronaldo never won the Champions League. Sometimes football works like this.
Yes, it’s hard now, perhaps even pointless, to go back over the particulars of everything that led up to Saturday night. But City still won 21 games in a row in all competitions, City still had the Premier League’s best defence and the best attack, City still kept the most clean sheets in the division, Guardiola still sat down with his inner circle and found a way, in the darkest moments of the season, to turn everything around in the blink of an eye; he defied expectations and took City back to the top of the Premier League and further than expected in Europe, finding a way to dominate games without a striker, to play attractive yet resilient football. Why didn’t he just do it one more time in Porto?! Ah, that feeling will never go away.
But Phil Foden still scored that fine goal in a 4-1 win at Anfield, Ruben Dias still won the writers’ Footballer of the Year award in his debut season, Bernardo Silva still enchanted fans with his industrious performances, Riyad Mahrez still showed his full potential, Ilkay Gundogan still reminded us why he’s so important, John Stones still delighted fans with his comeback, Fernandinho still rolled back the years, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Rodri still shook off last season’s doubts, there were still fans at Wembley to see City win the Carabao Cup for the fourth time in a row, there were even more of them at the Etihad to see City lift their third champions’ trophy in four years, after a game where they still saw Sergio Aguero come on and score twice in his farewell Premier League appearance – one of the most special, emotional moments the stadium has ever witnessed.
That all happened. So did that disaster in Porto.
It was a great season, it was a disappointing season.
The two things will just have to live hand in hand.
MAY RESULTS
Premier League, May 1, 2021
Crystal Palace 0 Man City 2
Man City scorers: Aguero 57, Torres 59
Champions League, May 4, 2021
Man City 2 Paris Saint-Germain 0
Man City scorers: Mahrez 11, 63
Premier League, May 8, 2021
Man City 1 Chelsea 2
Man City scorers: Sterling 44
Premier League, May 14, 2021
Newcastle 3 Man City 4
Man City scorers: Cancelo 39, Torres 42, 64, 66
Premier League, May 18, 2021
Brighton 3 Man City 2
Man City scorers: Gundogan 2, Foden 48
Premier League, May 23, 2021
Man City 5 Everton 0
Man City scorers: De Bruyne 11, Jesus 14, Foden 53, Aguero 71, 76
Champions League, May 29, 2021
Man City 0 Chelsea 1
Standing Alone: Stories of Heroism and Heartbreak from Manchester City’s 2020/21 Title-Winning Season by Sam Lee, Daniel Taylor and Oliver Kay is published by Polaris. More info here.
Didn’t Donegal play Tyrone in the first round? And Dublin will play Kildare in the next round, as will Cork and Kerry, and it’s not the GAAs fault that Galway have melted into a shambles. We would then have had Mayo v Galway too in the first round. All of this before the end of June. Then you have the real payoff, the excitement of seeing the very best teams against each other in August and September, the way any worthy competition should be. The GAA has plenty of flaws but I think this article is a very unfocused knee-jerk reaction to a few hidings dished out by teams on top of their game.
Dave agree entirely
A Dubs fan
Lot of people talking about Mayo this year but where have we heard that before
Wouldn’t write off Kerry either S a lot of people seem to be doing
I’m a Dubs man meself Declan. I think this Mayo team is a different proposition from previous years, there’s a hard edge to them which I think makes them serious contenders.
I think Dublin, Donegal, Cork and Mayo are all around the same level (one from each province too, which is nice) then there’s Tyrone, Kerry and Kildare a level just below that. 7 realistic contenders for the All Ireland, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Yes agree 7 teams with varying degrees of optimism
If they had that in the premiership they would be laughing!!
Mayo have new fitness coach so let’s see
A dubs fan passing a comment about another team being over hyped early in the year.. Oh the irony!
San Marino get hammered every time they play but you don’t see fifa changing around the format of the European/world cup qualifiers so they can win a few games
If counties are not up to the standard why should the gaa change around the format to try and suit them, the football championship is very strong and some teams will get left behind
They change the format every few tournaments! And they do it to allow a more desirable geographic spread off WC finals competitors
The fact that there are eight competitive teams places the Gaa in an enviable position . It can’t be said of other codes. How many EPL winners have there been since its inception . The GAA championship compares very Favourably. It’s not long since Dublin and Donegal were on the wrong end of a few such drubbings . In 2011 London almost beat mayo who then made an all Ireland semi final , beating the all Ireland champions en route. Louth contested a Leinster final . Wexford likewise on a couple of occasions. Similar knee jerk reaction were pedalled out in 2010 when none of the provincial finalists reached the semi finals . September is the time to make a more considered judgment
GAA is fine as is.
If other counties want to perform they can pay for more training sessions and try and get more people to come to the matches.
I agree in part. But I don’t think it means we need to rearrange the format of the championship. Every time a team gets hammered some people talk about the need to level the playing field. The system is fine. It has been changed once, with the back door, if they change it again like they did with the league over and over again people will lose interest.
We had years of Galway hurling people blaming the structure of the championship for them not winning, now it’s the championship structures that Galway footballers are rubbish,
Derry were not well beaten, in fact they played some of the best football of the championship to date in the best game to date. Diagonal balls to Bradley and his destruction of Down defense in first half was a joy to watch.
Westmeath got a day out in croker they saw the level they need to aspire too its all a learning curve / and that’s always the way it’s been how else are you going to improve
The money and the people involved with the Dublin team vs small counties like w.meath is very unfair.Maybe a large populace county like Dublin should field two teams a city and county team.
As Kerry do each year and how All Ireland’s have they won with a small population
The whole thing is a farce lets do away with the provincials 8 groups of 4 top 2 into the the A final bottom 2 to a B Final and in the last 16 -an open draw when your out you are out at least the teams in the final get to play the same amount of games.
Yeah, everyone would get three games and the eventual finalists would get 7. Seems fair
I wouldn’t do an open draw for the last 16 though. I’d run it like a Heineken Cup. The best performing team plays worst and so forth, to reward consistent good play
The championship is fine the way it is. They should give division 3 and 4 teams home advantage when playing division 1 teams.
The championship format is fairly rubbish to be honest. It’s not fair in my opinion to the Ulster teams especially. The Connaught and Munster Championships and somewhat Leinster are absolute dire. They should have a Champions League style format of 8 groups of 4 teams and the top 2 from each group enter the Last 16 of the All Ireland with the top from each group playing a 2nd placed team. The groups would also be seeded from their National League position meaning all Division 1 teams would be in a separate group and so on. At least every team would get 3 Championship games, the prospect of an open draw would also do much to enhance the game….and I’m not from Ulster!
I don’t see how ulster is any better. Donegal are near certainties for ulster this year and that will be 3 in a row and before them Tyrone and Armagh shared it for the previous ten years.
Leinster and ulster have to win more games to win an all Ireland however which is definitely unfair.
Kerry and cork basically don’t have to do anything until August because the rest of Munster are light years behind them. This is extremely unfair on the rest and plays a large part in Kerry’s success in my opinion despite their producing some excellent teams.
Some people suggest that it’s better for Kerry/Cork to take the back door route as they get more competitive games. As it is they get to play Each other in their only tough match before Aug and arrive untested into the Knockout stages.
These two scenarios get played out whenever Kerry/cork reach the QF and either win easily or lose comfortably.
If they get to QF by winning munster and win easily its cos they are fresh from easy matches. If they lose its cos they are untested.
For decades ulster was the weakest province, now it’s the most competitive. Why, they work hard but helped as all the counties place football number one. In Munster only Kerry place football 1, all the others are hurling or 50/50 in corks case. Munster will never have 6 strong teams
Maybe picky, but Derry WERE Division 2 and Down WERE Division 1, but Derry got promoted, Down got relegated, so division 2 team beat division 1 team.
(Best game if championship so far – great advert for GAA)