When Jurgen ascends to his kingdom in the clouds, and brightens the whole sky by smiling. There will no longer be darkness.
Hmm nope not really, that's just yer more revisionim and nostalgia. In the late '90s, you had the Italian clubs being brilliant, granted but not until 1998 did Real even have an impact on the European stage. They'd gone a very long time being behind the elite. Bayern were good but not treble ultra dominant good that can afford to have the best players from outside of Germany like they can now. Dortmund had that incredible run in 1997 but that was far from a great team. Their semi against us was compared and rightly so to their semi against PSG this year. France didn't have an elite team but the Netherlands did in Ajax. Move forward to the '00s and Real went through a period with no 1/4 for something like 6 years. The Italian clubs powers started waning with too old players and they started being overtaken by English clubs superior finances. The Germans haven't had a finalist from 2002 to 2012 whereas Barcelona started growing in the European stage. Throughout all of that, the English clubs only had us to compete until the mid '00s.
Nostalgia will convince people everything was better in their day because it tens to squeeze out all the mediocrity and only remember excellence. The likes of Souness says the same thing about how it was in their day and so on ...
to be fair though, when liverpool finished 2nd to city they were genuinely in a title race on the last day. we were 20 odd points back in our 2nd place finish.
Harsh on @roberto de Zerbi
It's based on the fact that Guardiola is just a really good coach. Even though City has their 115 charges, it doesn't diminish his quality. I'm not Guardiola fan boy but the game moved on from the Fergie and Wenger type managers.
Of course it does. If you achieve something by cheating the rules that others abide by, then yes it diminishes that achievement.
It's not rubbish. It definitely moved on since SAF's days. But the question is would SAF have been able to move along, and of course the answer is yes, because that was the reason why he had such a long successful career.
You may regard it as rubbish but even Wenger has said it. Allardyce in an interview a couple years ago has said it. I'm not speaking based on feelings, these are comments made by managers. Gone are the days where you can't think tactically. Neville, Keane, Ole, have all said that Fergie wasn't a tactical manager, and they HARDLY ever did tactical drills. Fergie just had an unbelievable knack in getting the best out of a squad of players and it's why he'd always be regarded as a top-quality coach. These days, you can't just 'get the best out of players". You need to look at data, stats, tactics of your team and the opposition, along with other factors that affect the team on the pitch. Am I saying that Fergie would not have been able to adjust or adapt to modern day football, of course not. But Guardiola is just on another level when it comes to his understanding of the game.
