The managerial rivalry that will define the modern era of English football throws Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp together for the final time in Premier League combat, one last vital joust, one last coup de théatre, one last chapter of galloping cut and thrust. The arch exponent of pass-them-to-death against the hi-energy champion with — Arsenal allowing — the usual prize awaiting the winners.
Having disposed of Manchester United with minimal fuss and progressed to the Champions League quarter-finals for the seventh successive season, City now face games against Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal and Aston Villa, a quartet of matches that will surely provide a clear idea of what to expect from the pointy end of the season for Guardiola’s men.
City have been here before of course, calm in the knowledge that they have the big-game players with winners’ attitudes, boosted by the timely reappearance of Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland and working up a royal head of steam for the most pivotal section of the season. How many times in recent years has Guardiola prepared everything for the April-May run-in, getting City into cruise control as others wilt, implode and froth themselves into over-excitement and early climax?
“We believe we can do it,” the Catalan insisted during the week, rejigging the mentality brought with him from Barcelona and Munich, where winning was a prerequisite. This was a mindset conspicuous by its absence in the halcyon days of Maine Road, this self-assured feeling of it’ll be alright on the night. Anything that could go wrong, in those days of bluff and blunder, invariably did just that. City were the polar opposite of the assured bunch of super-athletes that strut and charge today. Even in the early Guardiola years there was searing disappointment against Monaco and Spurs and multiple disasters against Liverpool too. Let’s not forget the grim repetition of losing to them in Europe, in the league, and — it seemed — wherever else the two sides met.
In dusting off the bitty particles of United and swatting aside Copenhagen with a team featuring seven changes from the weekend derby, City appear to be engaging middle gears without hitting top speed, the promise of even greater snap and intensity to come in due course. In a season of gentle churn, the feeling is they have not yet really hit warp speed.
But this is Anfield, as they say, and Anfield, in City terms, is like an afternoon stroll in Death Valley without a sun hat. The crippling hoodoos of Old Trafford and Highbury/Emirates have long been banished, but this closest of geographical rivalries persists like a stubborn stone in the shoe. City just cannot shake this Anfield hypnosis. It is the last domestic barrier left to be properly smashed down.
“We can compete everywhere now,” said Guardiola. The consistency of excellence has earned them this. They stroll into the cathedrals of world football and walk out at the end with the prizes. This correspondent witnessed the beginning of the process with painful defeats at the Nou Camp, the Bernabeu, Allianz Arena, Old Trafford and at Wembley against the redoubtable Wigan Athletic. It was not immediately a bed of roses.
The juggernaut in sky blue we now witness has taken time to construct, the cocksure mentality even longer. City, multiple Premier League champions, World Club champions, now chase a double Treble, unthinkable accomplishments that the glory boys of yore, Paul Power, Richard Dunne and Giorgios Samaras would have donated a kidney for.
One challenge remains: tidying up at the other end of the East Lancs Road. Only Nicolas Anelka, Phil Foden and Kevin Reeves can explain what it feels like to net the winner at Anfield for City in the last 35 seasons. Herr Klopp has prolonged this agony into the modern era, a manager who has successfully stymied Guardiola wherever they have met.
Guardiola too is Klopp’s greatest nemesis. They have both lost against each other more than against anyone else, a sizzling rivalry of great football shapes and ideas that has given birth to a mutual respect that the bristling likes of Ferguson, Wenger, Conte, Mourinho and Tuchel could not find within themselves.
For these are perhaps the greatest of Great Men. They fizz and pop with energy and indignation, mindful of the dynasties they have created in this North-West football hotbed. They are the men who have given City and Liverpool pride and accolades and given the rest of us an eight-year spectacular. It is not to wish for too much to hope Sunday’s final episode at Anfield will be one more divine spectacle, as the curtain drops on the defining managerial spat of our times.
