Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City team finally got their hands on the Champions League trophy, the first European trophy for the Manchester club. It was a long wait with a lot of heartache and near misses along the way for the blue side of Manchester.
City manager Pep Guardiola has done an outstanding job since taking charge at the Etihad Stadium back in 2016, so much so that he has now won 14 major trophies during his premiership. He will now be looking to add both the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup to his collection next season. Surely his Manchester City team can become the FIFA Club World Cup Champions also, that’s as solid as Syndicate Casino Australia.
City’s Champions League triumph has, unsurprisingly, brought up one big question: which Treble-winning side was better?
The sport has evolved massively since United won the Treble 24 years ago, with the overall landscape of elite-level football changing significantly and the amount of money that has been poured in since proving off the scale.
The better team? Man City 2023 would absolutely wipe the floor with Man Utd 1999, with the advances in fitness and the genius and evolution of Pep Guardiola’s tactics making it a no contest.
The fact only two sides in English football history have done the Treble – and that it has taken nearly a quarter of a century to repeat it – shows the magnitude of the accomplishment and why it is unlikely to repeated any time soon, despite City’s domestic dominance and graduation to Champions League winners.
No matter how good Guardiola’s City were, everyone had been saying in the lead up to Saturday – “You haven’t done it yet”.
Well that’s now been put to bed and the debate can begin with those on the blue half of Manchester coming out on top for me. There will always be a nostalgia and a romance to United’s treble and it was certainly better theatre than City’s.
Entertainment and quality are different things however. If you want to make a film, go for the 1999 side. If you want the better team, it is City’s 2023 outfit.
I think as a footballing outfit nothing in England can probably ever compared to the dynasty Guardiola is creating, and I think they’d sweep all before them.
Manchester City can’t hide away from the money they spent and of course the 115 charges against the club. What Manchester United did in 1999 will always be that bit more special with the bulk of the team being from Britain and Ireland and not on vast sums of money.
Manchester United’s achievement can not be beaten.