Before Liverpool took on Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday evening, fellow title contender Manchester City was initially due to be hosting Brentford at the Etihad. However, that fixture had to be postponed, with European champion City heading to the Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, City brushed off Japanese side Urawa Reds in the semi-final, winning 3-0 to set up a meeting with Copa Libertadores winner Fluminense in Friday’s final. On the last two occasions when an English side had met a Brazilian club in the final of the competition (Liverpool’s clash with Flamengo in 2019 and Chelsea’s game against Palmeiras in 2022), extra-time had been required. City, however, encountered no such difficulties as it rolled to a 4-0 victory, with Julian Álvarez’s opener inside the first 40 seconds a telling glimpse of the gulf in class. Nino’s own goal doubled its advantage inside half an hour, then Phil Foden definitively settled the game in the 72nd minute before Álvarez made it four with his second goal just before the end.
City’s trip to the Gulf has been a routine affair, as demonstrated by its seven unanswered goals. It now remains to be seen how well it navigates stepping back into the festive Premier League schedule.
While his side wasn’t truly pushed in the mini-tournament, it capped off a special achievement for Pep Guardiola. Previously, no manager of an English club, not even the great Sir Alex Ferguson, had won five trophies in a single calendar year, but City has now followed up its historic treble (the first since Ferguson’s Manchester United won it in 1999) with triumphs in the UEFA Super Cup (over Sevilla) and Club World Cup.
The Spaniard has now won as many as seven different trophies since he took over in Manchester in 2016, having established a stranglehold on the League Cup between 2018 and 2021 and also claimed the curtain-raising Community Shield twice in that period.
“To win the treble was truly special, but to win two more trophies and now hold these five major titles shows the unique mentality of this team, of the club and its fans,” Guardiola reflected (via Man City’s official website). “It is something no other English team has ever achieved and we will always remember this incredible time we spent together.”
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Jürgen Klopp, of course, became a world champion at Liverpool four years ago as the Reds sealed an ‘international treble’ after beating Spurs in the Champions League final and Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup. But now Guardiola has issued a fresh challenge by winning every competition he’s taken part in as the City boss.
Klopp still needs to guide Liverpool to Europa League glory if he’s to match that feat, with the Reds bidding for redemption this season eight years after their heartbreak against Sevilla in Basel in his first season at the helm. They’re in a good position to achieve it, having comfortably qualified for the round of 16 in the New Year. Even after the culmination of the Champions League group stages, with eight sides dropping down, nobody can really threaten Liverpool’s tag as the favorite.
In a sense, the story of the great rivalry between Guardiola and Klopp has been the former setting unprecedented benchmarks, then the latter somehow matching them. Now, he has been given yet another to strive for as he seeks a complete trophy cabinet at Anfield.
