Only by those who value such things. Not everyone does.
Man City's inevitable Treble
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I’m just watching Vidic’s interview on Rios channel. And what he says is so true - that Sir Alex developed footballing talent - sometime relative unknowns like him, sometimes talented young talents like Ronaldo, Nani etc and often academy products - while competing for and winning big trophies. Then you add in the fact that he created the successful behemoth that was 90s-2010s United and did absolute miracles at Aberdeen.
So yeah feck the manager of Cheats FC
He’s well dodgy isn’t he…
And then you’ve got the magical doctors as well.
Would love to see him and City stripped of titles - will never ever happen though. Not a chance.
Who is the best team they can possibly play in the CL final?
I know that side of the draw is rotten.
I know that side of the draw is rotten.
Pep will go down as one of the greatest ever manager. City was hit or miss, run in the mill title contender before him. He has turned them into a machine. The faster he is gone from City, the faster they will fall, because his level of success is not sustainable for any other manager. If he wins the Treble (or a PL/CL double) this season, I think he will go down as the greatest manager ever.
His influence in the game has been nothing short of greatness. Think about the national teams of the clubs he has coached. Barca - Spain (dominated the national scene), Bayern - Germany (dominated the national scene), City - England (but for Southgate, would have dominated the national scene). Today's English team is considered to be the most successful in recent times(this despite not being termed as the so called golden generation) . It is not a coincidence it happens while he is managing in England.
The quality requirements of the players to keep the ball has gone up a notch throughout the PL, the requirements for defenders/GK to play the ball this are unprecedented tactical changes for the PL era. Most of our defenders where used to sitting close to the goal line and the Gk's/defenders alike where only expected to CLEAR the ball - most of them will fall short on modern requirements. Gone are the days of praising tactical crap like Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis, Sean Dyche etc. as the 'Hard-Men" and "English-way". Managers like Benitez, Mourinho and even the likes of Conte etc., have been scorned and thrown out of vogue. Pep trumped Messi's influence in his pomp. When you think of the greatest ever club side, Barca - 08 era, you would think of Pep more than Messi and that talks lengths about his influence. All other managers after him where overshadowed by the brilliance of Messi (or other players). But under Pep, it was Pep.
While City's success can be played down to their unfair investments, but hard to play down Pep's achievements as all down to money. It is weird in some sense that some of his players wont really make the top player in their position for most other teams despite being expensive. For example, Ederson wouldn't be considered the best in his position. For many a teams he could easily be a Lloris and drop a clanger here and there. Consider his backline, Nathan Ake, John Stones, Laporte, Dias etc., very good players, but not the best lot (I could name 10 others as good if not better than them). While their midfield is truly elite, but for Halaand, they were hardly using their forwards well (including Aguero and Jesus). In effect, its Pep's system that's truly churning these results like a machine.
There are a number of qualities in which, SAF, Ancelotti or even the likes of Mourinho or Klopp can trump Pep. but if you consider the whole thing as a package, as an ardent football fan, its easy to see Pep could go down as one of the greatest ever manager yet.
His influence in the game has been nothing short of greatness. Think about the national teams of the clubs he has coached. Barca - Spain (dominated the national scene), Bayern - Germany (dominated the national scene), City - England (but for Southgate, would have dominated the national scene). Today's English team is considered to be the most successful in recent times(this despite not being termed as the so called golden generation) . It is not a coincidence it happens while he is managing in England.
The quality requirements of the players to keep the ball has gone up a notch throughout the PL, the requirements for defenders/GK to play the ball this are unprecedented tactical changes for the PL era. Most of our defenders where used to sitting close to the goal line and the Gk's/defenders alike where only expected to CLEAR the ball - most of them will fall short on modern requirements. Gone are the days of praising tactical crap like Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis, Sean Dyche etc. as the 'Hard-Men" and "English-way". Managers like Benitez, Mourinho and even the likes of Conte etc., have been scorned and thrown out of vogue. Pep trumped Messi's influence in his pomp. When you think of the greatest ever club side, Barca - 08 era, you would think of Pep more than Messi and that talks lengths about his influence. All other managers after him where overshadowed by the brilliance of Messi (or other players). But under Pep, it was Pep.
While City's success can be played down to their unfair investments, but hard to play down Pep's achievements as all down to money. It is weird in some sense that some of his players wont really make the top player in their position for most other teams despite being expensive. For example, Ederson wouldn't be considered the best in his position. For many a teams he could easily be a Lloris and drop a clanger here and there. Consider his backline, Nathan Ake, John Stones, Laporte, Dias etc., very good players, but not the best lot (I could name 10 others as good if not better than them). While their midfield is truly elite, but for Halaand, they were hardly using their forwards well (including Aguero and Jesus). In effect, its Pep's system that's truly churning these results like a machine.
There are a number of qualities in which, SAF, Ancelotti or even the likes of Mourinho or Klopp can trump Pep. but if you consider the whole thing as a package, as an ardent football fan, its easy to see Pep could go down as one of the greatest ever manager yet.
I personally couldn't care less if City did the Treble. I'm just bothered about United winning a second trophy. Doesn't matter who it's against and what it could mean for them. One or more of (Arsenal winning the PL, United the FA Cup and Real Madrid the CL) would be an emphatic statement from the old guard, the legacy, history morally superior clubs as regards to who owns football.
Possibly but I have never heard of that happening before.
Fair point, but most teams in the PL waste a lot of money.
I am not sure, if Pep keeps going he will get ahead.
Fair point but SAF should have been more successful in Europe though.
Well on wages obviously City spent more, but on buying players there is not much difference.
No. We already did it and without oil money, back at a time when the PL wasn’t the richest league around.
Madrid will stop them at the CL. And with Varane back, we have a good chance of beating them as we did in January. Arsenal will probably bottle it, sadly.
Barca team which he inherited;
Valdes
Zambrotta, Puyol, Marquez, Abidal
Yaya (Edmilson), Xavi, Iniesta (Deco)
Eto'o, Messi, Henry (Ronaldinho)
Subs; Gudjonsen, Milito, Silvinho
Hardly a team which needed a rebuilding or something.
Bayern; he inherited a team which just won bloody treble with whole team in their prime years. But he was still spanked all 3 times in CL as soon he met top club.
He is nothing but cheque book manager. Best one though.
If he had Messi he probably would have been.
Pep should have achieved more against the odds / as an underdog
It is easy to say he had the best players etc after they beat everyone.
Hell, many said the same about Xavi and Iniesta. Which was mad.
Doesn’t really matter, if they get through the semi then they should win it.
Yes, I just want another trophy.
Messi was already voted 3rd best player in the world in 2007 and 2nd best in 2008 before Pep even took over Barca.
Xavi was voted player of the Euros 2008. Iniesta and Puyol were also voted in the team of the tournament.
I mean it’s obvious that Messi, Xavi and Iniesta were not just world class players, but generational players.
Yes Pep still did a great job, but he hardly did anything which was not already done shortly before him.
Spain‘s winning run began in 2008.
Barca won La Liga and CL in 2006.
If we are discounting great players at disposal or oil money and just going for the (yes impressive) wins/trophies, then Mourinho‘s first league title with Chelsea half a century (!) after the club had last won it would be as impressive as anything else, if not even more.
People are acting as if Pep taught Spain and Barca how to play football and how to win whereas in reality he already took over winners. He hardly took over Spurs.
Yes like everyone said about us after 12-13
Bingo
$100 for anyone or their favorite charity, pointing to a post on the internet predicting Pep's success in 2008 shortly after his hire, prior to the start of the 08-09 season
Did anyone predict SAF to win a European trophy with Aberdeen beating Bayern and RM? Or winning 13 league titles in England?
Or Zidane winning 3 CLs in a row? Or did anyone predict Mourinho dominating the premier league in 2004 when he was hired?
Did anyone predict United would win the league back from Mourinho and Chelsea shortly after we lost Ruud and Keane and only bought Carrick?
Did anyone predict Barca winning 2 league titles and a CL when Frank Rijkaard was hired? Leicester winning the league?
Milan beating Barca in 1994?
„Defensive and coward“ Mourinho having a record breaking 2011/12 La Liga campaign beating Pep‘s Barca?
Or the other way round people predict since Pep‘s Bayern days every season how he was going to win the CL.
Predicting anything especially on the internet means feck all.
Ah our rival’s biggest supporter couldn’t help himself
100%This too. Some strange posters on here.
Not a lot of people were posting on the internet then, might need to check and see if MySpace archived old accounts.
Pretty sure this place was just as active as it is now back in 08, I wasnt a member then but I would check this place regularly and it was pretty active IIRC. MySpace was out by 08, pretty sure FB was already pretty popular.
Xavi wasn't a sure starter at Barcelona, Iniesta definitely wasn't either. If you're saying that because they had a great Euro tournament in 2008, it meant that they were already great players, then that's simply weird. I mean we've often seen players do great in tournaments, only to revert to their inconsistent ways afterwards (Klose, James Rodriguez, the whole Italian team that won the last euros just to name a few) .
The truth is that you won't find any article calling Xavi and Iniesta generational talents before the 2008/2009 season. Fabregas was rated higher than both of them back them. But hindsight is always 20/20 i guess.
As for all the great players he's coached, well you just have to listen to them talk about Pep and how highly they rate him. Even listen to other coaches talk about his influence. I guess they all don't know what they're talking about right?
What are you talking about? Xavi played every minute against us in the semi in 2007/08 and Iniesta also started both games. They both also started most of the league and CL games for Barca that season. They were regulars. I really don’t know what people are smoking when they try to downplay those players.
Unlike Klose or James, Xavi and Iniesta (and obviously Messi) have been extremely successful for both club and country, with and without Pep.
And as you mention Fabregas, even very good players like him didn’t start ahead of Xavi or Iniesta in the Euros 2008, Fabregas was rated highly but was still used as a sub (because the others were even better). Fabregas may have been rated higher in England as he was playing in England, but not at Barca or Spain.
...
I am literally asking for a reason to put money in someone's pocket or give money to charity and you're here writing an essay when in fact you could just find the post and shut my mouth up and open up my wallet
Thanks but you are free to donate your money to a charity of your choice. I don’t need it from you.
Xavi made his debut for Barca in 1998 and was making regular appearances long before Pep arrived, the Xavi in Peps Barca B team was named Xavi Torres and only made 2 appearances for the senior team before being sold to malaga.
Iniesta made his first team debut in 2002 and was a regular first teamer from 2004.
You could have just shut the feck up then and just kept it moving
We did have the best squad that season. It was a particularly weak PL season where we had no competition.Yes like everyone said about us after 12-13
That's fair enough but no one said he took over a weak squad, but the difference between before and during Pep was still big and those players were not talked about the same.
Annoyed much? Says the one who never shuts the feck up on a United forum about all our rivals‘ so called achievements.
Fatigue has to hit the cnuts eventually, surely?
Like i said, no one was calling both of them generational talents though Xavi's talent was well recognized, he was in Deco and Ronaldinho's shadows. And I didn't say they weren't playing, just that they weren't always sure starters, especially Iniesta who was being shipped around different positions.
And during the euros in 2008, Fabregas and Xavi were starters from the beginning, not Iniesta but he grabbed a starting spot as the competition went on.
Sir Alex is obviously the greatest, but I would also say Ancelotti, Paisley, Shankly, Michels, Mourinho are better. Managers that you could argue are the likes of Lippi and Zidane.
Pep may play great football when given endless funds and the best team in the league, but the others have won plenty of major honours while being the underdog or having to work within a limit.