Pep Guardiola is a difficult man to read. The Manchester City manager can often betray a sense of false modesty, suggesting that incredible achievements are beyond his team before he sees his players do what he had initially said would be impossible. Last season's treble was a clear example of this.
Perhaps Guardiola is simply adopting the same old “mind games” that most successful bosses deploy in an attempt to relieve pressure on their teams and reduce expectation levels. But when a senior manager downplays the chances of winning, no one believes them.
However, with City resuming the defense of their Champions League title when they face FC Copenhagen in Denmark on Tuesday in the first leg of their round of 16 tie, Guardiola has emphatically ruled out the possibility of the Premier League champions League repeat last year's treble.
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“This is a fairy tale, it's more complicated than that,” he said last week. “We have a 99.99% chance that we are not going to win the treble because no one has ever, ever, ever, ever, ever done it. If it were easy, another team, Manchester United at that time, would do it.” to do. Is not easy. “Everything is so difficult in this business that what we did in the past does not guarantee anything.”
False modesty again, or a case of Guardiola giving everyone associated with City a cold dose of reality?
The truth is that Guardiola could be right. Since the start of the Champions League era in 1992, seven teams, including City, have achieved the treble of domestic league, domestic cup and Champions League. To date, none of them have backed him up by repeating the feat 12 months later.
In 1999-2000, Sir Alex Ferguson's hat-trick at Manchester United defended the Premier League title, but was eliminated in the Champions League quarter-finals by Real Madrid. That season, United were unable to defend the FA Cup after withdrawing from the competition to participate in the FIFA Club World Cup in Brazil.
Ten years later, Guardiola's Barcelona won only one competition, La Liga, after achieving the treble in 2008-09, while Inter Milan, champions of Serie A, followed up their treble in 2009-10 and won only the Coppa Italia the following season.
German giant Bayern Munich achieved the treble in 2012-13 and 2019-20, but achieved a domestic double in 2013-14 and only won the Bundesliga in 2020-21, while Luis Enrique's Barcelona won LaLiga and Copa del Rey in 2015-16. but they were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals, ending hopes of a back-to-back treble.
But while history does not favor City in their quest to become the first team to win a treble in successive seasons, they have an advantage that none of their six predecessors had in the Champions League: no emerging team seems willing to claim their throne.
Vicente del Bosque's Real Madrid great, who won two Champions Leagues in three seasons, ended United's hopes in 2000; Jose Mourinho's treble-winning Inter knocked out Barcelona in 2010; Bayern were overthrown by Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid in 2014; Diego Simeone's Atlético Madrid represented Barcelona in 2016 before losing to Real in the final.
In 2021, Bayern's defense of their European crown ended against Paris Saint-Germain in the quarterfinals. That year, when Chelsea won the title, is perhaps the only example of a treble winner coming up short in a relatively weak field. They are usually eliminated by a formidable opponent.
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But it is difficult to identify such a threat to City in this season's competition. Bayern are struggling domestically under Thomas Tuchel, and Saturday's 3-0 loss to Bayer Leverkusen raises the real possibility of Bayern failing to win the Bundesliga for the first time since 2011, while PSG is a declining force in the Champions League following the recent departures of Neymar and Lionel Messi.
Barcelona are treading water in LaLiga, Italian champions Napoli are mid-table in Serie A, while neither Borussia Dortmund nor Atlético Madrid look ready to emerge as surprise winners. Arsenal have yet to convince themselves that they have the consistency and experience to win the Champions League for the first time and, although Inter look strong at the top of Serie A, City would have no fear against them. Nerrazzurri if they met, having beaten Simone Inzaghi's team in last season's final in Istanbul.
That leaves Real as City's biggest threat, but even though midfielder Jude Bellingham (who is expected to be sidelined until March with an ankle injury) has been outstanding this season, the LaLiga leaders still look lacking a proven goalscorer following Karim Benzema's move to Al Ittihad last summer. And City defeated Real 5-1 on aggregate in last season's semi-final, so Guardiola will not be intimidated by a clash against Ancelotti's team.
The team City fear most, Liverpool, is not even in this season's Champions League, so the path to glory in the competition seems more than navigable. But the Champions League is only part of the treble. Liverpool are still standing in City's way in the Premier League and FA Cup, so perhaps Guardiola is right to downplay his team's treble chances.
The Champions League might be the easiest to win, but while City are the team to beat in everything, their domestic challenge will likely be the toughest and the one that will ultimately bring them down and prove that Guardiola is right to be pessimistic.
