2023-12-22 22:41:59
AGENCIES
Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)
Updated Friday, December 22, 2023 – 21:41
Guardiola, the first coach to win four Club World Cup titles, also with three different teams – two with Barcelona, one with Bayern Munich and this one with Manchester City – has led City to achievements that were unthinkable not long ago.
Pep Guardiola, Manchester City coach, with the champion’s medal.ALI HAIDEREFE
Manchester City closed the circle, completing an unparalleled season in English football with the conquest of the Club World Cup, the fifth success achieved in the season after winning without setbacks4-0 to Fluminense, that could not break the curse that haunts South American football in this competition nor the match of the Spanish Pep Guardiola with history.
The first coach to win four Club World Cup titles, also with three different teams – two with Barcelona, one with Bayern Munich and this one with Manchester City – has led City to achievements that were unthinkable not long ago. The Club World Cup rounds off a spectacular year which joins the conquests of the Premier, the English Cup, the Champions League and the European Super Cup. The only thing that eluded him was the English Super Cup -Community Shield- which Arsenal took from him in the penalty shoot-out.
Manchester City has not left any other loose ends this year, one step away from the legendary sextet, which expands Guardiola’s resume, already with 37 titles in his backpack, and underlines the recent power of the English champion.
The fourth Premier club to win the World Cup after Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, enjoyed a final without excessive surprises, an uneven duel from the beginning that expressed from the start the distance between football on the Old Continent and that of Conmebol, without success since Cointhians beat Chelsea in the 2012 edition.
And in one of the first plays of the duel, City opened the scoring. In the initial minute. Fluminense committed suicide who was condemned for his own errors. Marcelo He had one big one, after a throw-in, a meaningless hit by his ball, into no man’s land, where he was Nathan Ake, who advanced a few meters and from very far away fired a shot that repelled the stick. There was Julián Álvarez, who, with his chest, beat Fabio. Only forty seconds had passed. Was the fastest goal in a Club World Cup final.
The mistake of the legendary Brazilian full-back, who aspired to win his fifth Club World Cup after the four he won with Real Madrid, was decisive.
But City is not a team that wastes gifts, on the contrary. The goal calmed Guardiola’s team, accustomed to handling finals of this type, while it upset the Libertadores champion, who rushed in search of a draw that did not come.
Threatened German Cano and also Keno, without excessive conviction, shortly before Guardiola’s team scored the second, just before the half hour mark. It was born in a long, deep pass, Rodri toward Phil Foden, who looked for a pass to Jack Grealish or Julián Álvarez, in a better position. But the defender intervened Nino and deflected the ball, which went into his own goal.
The game became agitated in the final stretch before the break. Fluminense had their big chance there with a point-blank header from the Colombian John Arias that diverted Ederson in a great intervention, like the one after Fabio’s shot from Grealish.
The changes barely changed the panorama. Although Fernando Diniz He entered in the intermission John Kennedy because of Keno, his team did not improve in attack. At least not lucidly. Manchester City never lost control, they had chances to achieve a greater victory, like the one they wasted Bernardo Silva.
His header hit the right post and was then collected by goalkeeper Fabio, who thwarted another subsequent goal. Phil Foot.
It was the City youth player who scored the third, which rounded off the victory for the English team. In the 72nd minute, when he received a wonderful pass from the left, inside the area, from Julián Álvarez. Foden did not fail, as he beat Fabio for the third time and sealed the first Club World Cup in Manchester City’s history.
Erected in the man of the match, the finishing touch came from Julián Álvarez. The Argentine opened and closed the scoring, who in the final stretch, from the front, after finding space, received a pass from the right of Matheus Nunes and rounded off the English triumph and its success.
#Manchester #City #thrashes #Fluminense #wins #Club #World #Cup