Manchester City are English Premier League (EPL)'s Champions once again. Second time in two years. Back to back. Two in a row. Two on the trot. Twice on the bounce. Or any which way you want to call it. Supporters of Liverpool, Manchester United and seventeen other teams in EPL can deny and cry all they want.
If you think winning successive EPL titles is remarkable, wait. City also won the FA Cup and the League Cup. With a clean sweep of all three domestic trophies in a single season, City have achieved what the football industry calls a Treble, for lack of a more creative or cryptic term, like Eagle, Boogey, Buaya and Betting used in Golf. Had City won four trophies it would've been a Quadruple, one more would be Quintuple, and so on.
For the record City did actually win another trophy called the FA Community Shield early in the season, but this one is of so little consequence that nobody bothers. So to all intents and purposes, City have won three trophies. I'm fine with that.
British journalists may have differed on Brexit but they've all agreed that EPL is now the toughest and most competitive league in the world simply because all teams must play on Boxing Day. Some have to play three games in three days, in high winds and deep snow. On any day, any team could beat any team and any manager could lose his job (even Jose). The world-famous franchise and twenty-time champions Manchester United completed their campaign a dismal sixth after losing their last game at home to Cardiff, the third worst team in EPL.
EPL has been organized in such a way that it's unthinkable for any team to sustain peak performance throughout and win all three domestic trophies in one season. This is why City's treble triumph is extraordinary, unprecedented and so sensational. In a less competitive league, a Treble or Double Treble or Treble Double isn't uncommon. For some context and perspective, JDT aka TMJ did a Treble Treble, winning three trophies every year for three successive years. That's nothing to shout, of course, because Liga Super is so lopsided with meek make-weights like Felda United and Melaka Melaka offering only token competition. I'm sorry if you're still confused by this Double and Treble thing. It's difficult, I know, so let's just move on.
For us City's staunch and steadfast followers, this latest success is a measure of how far we've come. It's a just reward for sticking with the team through thick and thin, an accomplishment in itself on the back of City's legendary penchant for doing the simplest of things in the most complicated way. Exactly twenty years ago to the month City beat unfashionable Gillingham in a pulsating playoff at Wembley, bundling in two freak goals in the last four minutes of injury time. What we'd won wasn't a title or anything, but a promotion from the Third Division to the Second Division. I celebrated the momentous occasion by taking my two baffled sons to McDonald's for an all-you-can-eat outing.
What's behind City's growing supremacy and ascendancy? Pep Guardiola, the manager. No disputes here. This guy is clever. Give him a Nobel Prize for Physics, and an honorary knighthood for changing the boring face of English football and adding billions of pounds to the UK economy. He'd barnstormed EPL last season with his brand of breathless football, and City romped home with an all-time record of 100 points, 32 wins, and 106 goals. This season City's football was even better because rival teams like Liverpool had all wised up to City's playbook and were all primed to stop the show.
As suspected all along, British media response to City's extraordinary feat has been (relatively) measured and hesitant. Instead of feting City's unprecedented treble, the biased and bent media chose to celebrate Liverpool's unprecedented runners-up tally of 97 points. An NGO was hurriedly founded by misguided fans to petition the FA for a trophy or something to be handed to Liverpool, or maybe share the title with Manchester City. Somebody said stupidity is free.
According to these lazy football writers, City's domestic treble is not a "proper" treble. A proper treble is defined as a treble won by Manchester United or Liverpool. Even Arsenal Invincibles of 2004, with only one trophy, a paltry 90 points and a diving Robert Pires, were rated better than City's three titles or 100 points, defying all rules of reason. And, of course, those sneaky innuendos and allusion to "bought" titles and treble with 100 billion pounds shelled out on players with dirty money from the oppressive regime in Dubai. Dubai! Not only lazy, but also illiterate.
Look no further than the Guardian's David Squires' caricature for a feel of the on-going anti-city campaign and Liverpool bias:
This is supposed to be a cut-out and keep portrait of departing City's legend Vincent Company (City's captain). Vincent Company is the one standing and looking on in the background. The mop hairdo is Mohammad Salah, Liverpool's striker and diver.
If you think that City's three-trophy euphoria ended with a boisterous victory parade in Manchester streets, and Liverpool promising yet again that next year will be their year, and football writers migrating to Champions League Final in Madrid for the chance to praise and elevate Liverpool, think again. The impact of City's triumph over Liverpool is actually far reaching, even beyond the fringe of football.
Remember Theresa May's raving and rolling in the parliament after Liverpool's back-from-the-dead performance against Barcelona, likening it to her brave Brexit package? All's well and bullish in the Conservative government. The Liverpool-loving Conservative deal-makers and Labour rabble-rousers were in the heat of hammering out a Brexit breakthrough all night when City beat Brighton. All hell just broke loose. Nobody could think straight and agree on anything anymore. Seeing no more future now that Liverpool had failed to win the EPL for the 27th time, Theresa May took the only way out and resigned.
I'll be watching the Champions League Final between Liverpool and Spurs tomorrow morning. You'd not disagree with me that it should've been City v Somebody. Liverpool look good and lucky again but I'm praying for an upset. Come on you Spurs.
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