2023-06-10 23:02:31
BarcelonaWhat excuse will Guardiola’s critics invent to take credit for his title? Until now, his big argument was to remember that he had failed to win the Champions League with Manchester City, despite the fact that this is a project with pockets full of dollars and barrels of oil. The argument no longer serves, sorry.
Which ones will they look for now? That Manchester City have won their first Champions League without playing a grand final? Yes, I suspect this will be one they will use the most. Inter competed well, with their weapons. And City did not know how to dance with the ball at their feet, as they had done against Madrid in the semi-finals. So more than one will tell Guardiola that he should be ashamed, he who has always defended that it is necessary to play offensive football, to win the final without being able to excel. What a perverse argument, this one. The one with which idealists and romantics are always attacked. If you stand for an ideal, if you pursue beauty every day, your critics will laugh at you when you fail. And when you succeed, they will look for three feet on the cat, accusing you of not having done well enough. When Guardiola loses, it’s a failure. When he wins, he’s never done it well enough. They are never happy, their critics. They forget that in football, there are injuries, nerves and competitive rivals. You can’t always play the games the way you want them to. The key is the intention, the idea. And knowing how to compete when things don’t go your way.
Critics will also now say that this Champions League has no merit as Manchester City belongs to an Arab investment fund as they have spent millions as they have investigations open in England to see if the way they get the money from Persian Gulf in the north of England has been the right one. And yes, it is undeniable. And yes, we cannot forget that the European clubs are now pawns in the great geopolitical game table of undemocratic states. But having money does not guarantee winning. Let them tell PSG and Qatar, that they must be looking at it with envy. And the last clubs that have won the Champions League, Madrid the first of them, who are poor? What don’t they invest? You can only win one and City have chosen to leave the decision-making power on how to spend the money to the likes of Txiki Begiristain, Ferran Soriano and Guardiola. It is clear that he deserves to win the Champions League.
What argument will they look for, to continue taking credit for Guardiola? Sometimes, the coach of Santpedor seems guilty of all the evils in the world. What if he pees cologne, what if he is too much of a perfectionist, what if false modesty. He seems to be the killer of Kennedy, the culprit of climate change, the one responsible for all evils. What bothers them so much, Guardiola? That it is ambitious? That defends ideas? That he belongs to Barça and doesn’t hide from it? That it is Catalan and claims it? I can’t get the idea out of my head that most of Guardiola’s critics are not because of his style. They are not because of how he understands football, no. They can’t even see him because he defends ideas contrary to their own, because he’s Catalan and he doesn’t hide from it. They see him as an enemy, because he hurt them a lot when Barça was on the podium where City are now.
The triumph in Istanbul is the reward for so many years of work by a group of people, such as Soriano, Txiki and Guardiola, who made Barça great and have now fulfilled it in Manchester, a club that played in the Third Division in 1998 . The European crown rewards the fans who went to the old Maine Road, and the Catalans who have turned City into a modern and winning club. And yes, it’s true, it wasn’t the best ending. Guardiola already has his third crown and another treble without the match being as beautiful as his successes with Barça. It is a consolation for Barcelona fans to know that the most beautiful moment of Guardiola’s career was at Wembley with Blaugrana. A consolation on a joyful night, as Guardiola will always be one of ours. A genius And geniuses always have enemies. May they like it.
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