Updated:
Mar 13, 2023
Four League Titles, four EFL Cups, two Community Sheilds, and the FA Cup are the 11 trophies, which Manchester City has collected under Pep Guardiola, but the quest for a maiden Champions League trophy is still an issue for this wonderful, free-flowing team.
Besides losing to Chelsea in the 2021 Final, City has reached the semi-finals on only two occasions with Guardiola,(2016 and 2022) with Real Madrid breaking their hearts in an amazing turnaround at the Bernabeu last year.
And to have a manager who already has success in winning this trophy twice, with a brilliant Barcelona side, surely he would be eager to do the same with a sensational City?
“It’s public opinion. It doesn’t mean I agree with that but, absolutely, I’ll be judged on that. On day one since I arrived here, in the first game in Champions League, the first time sitting here, people said I was here to win the Champions League. I said ‘what’? “To be alive for the last two and a half months, extend our stay in the competitions and be close to Arsenal, it will be good.”
Guardiola: Independent
But when you are continuously winning all the other trophies apart from the world’s best club competition, surely the fans will be wanting the biggest of them all?
The city is currently 1-1 in their Last-16 tie with RB Leipzig, and they are aiming to reach the quarter-finals for the fifth successive time, which would be their sixth overall.
And star-man, Kevin De Bruyne is determined to be a part of that dream.
“I know people base everything on only winning but I feel there’s been a lot of circumstances in these kind of games – the Madrid game, the Tottenham game where we deserved to go through but didn’t. These are moments in games where these things happen. “Obviously I want to win it but I know that, as long as we don’t, I’ll come here and get the same questions and I’m fine because people judge you on that.
De Bruyne: BBC Sport
And for a player of his quality, surely it’s time for the dream to come to reality?
FA Cup and Premier League a Barrier?
But besides facing Leipzig Goudiola’s side is still in contention for winning two more trophies this season, as they face Burnley in the FA Cup, and attempt to hunt Arsenal down for the League title.
Sometimes when you have won almost everything there is as a club in football, the last couple of trophies can take a lot of hard work to get over the line because you are competing with many of the top clubs in Europe, which are also in with a chance of winning it, and when a team is involved in multiple competitions in a season, it can be difficult to
Take Rory Mcilroy as an example, the Northern Irishman has won almost every major tournament in golf, but the US Masters always seems to get the better of him, and you can sort of see the same thing happening with City and the Champions League.
And that is all down to the pressure of aiming to be the greatest team in the world, people say that the greatest teams must win everything to be considered the greatest of all time, and yet they forget how difficult it is to do so.
Currently, five points behind Arsenal along with an FA Cup Quater Final against Burnley on Saturday, City are still in with a chance of more silverware this season, but the matter of winning the biggest trophy of them all remains an uncertainty.
Can City finally achieve their European dream this season?
Send us your views on World in Sport
