Manchester City can officially be declared the best team in the world after they won their first ever Club World Cup with a 4-0 victory over South American giants, Fluminense, in the final on Friday evening.
The Abu Dhabi project, designed to invest incomprehensible amounts of money into Manchester City has achieved its primary aim… to become the best team in the world. After 15 years of lavish spending, exceptional recruiting and a levy of FFP breaches over their heads, the goal has finally become a reality.
Manchester City’s Julian Alvarez celebrates after scoring the 4-0 goalEFE
Of course, whilst there is also a focus on promoting Abu Dhabi as a state across the globe, the main reason for Manchester City’s modern existence since 2008 has been for Abu Dhabi to ‘win’.
They have shown Qatar how it’s done and have gotten to the table even before the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As far as Gulf States go, Abu Dhabi is the most successful in football.
Pep Guardiola was the key ingredient
Years of expensive failures and inconsistent recruitment came to an end for Manchester City the moment Guardiola arrived. His work with Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano has been flawless.
Manchester City have constructed a team the likes of which most can only dream of, and it was only a matter of time before they achieved success on the world stage.
The Club World Cup final on Friday was the culmination of 15 years of investment and work. Manchester City made light work of the best team in South America.
What was dubbed before kick-off as an incredible clash of styles between Guardiola and Fernando Diniz, it was the Spaniard who emerged victorious.
City made an electric start with Nathan Ake rattling a shot into the post after less than 45 seconds, however Julian Alvarez was quickest to the rebound and tapped the ball into an empty net.
It was 2-0 after half an hour as Nino scored an own-goal. He was attempting to cut out a cut-back across the Fluminense penalty area and inadvertently turned it into the net.
Things could have got worse for the Brazilian side before the break when Jack Grealish slalomed his way inbetween defenders before firing a shot towards the goal, however Fabio made an athletic save to deny the English international.
Fabio then kept City at bay two more times, keeping Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva off the scoresheet.
At times it looked like a defense vs. attack training session as City probed for a third goal, however it didn’t come until the 72nd minute.
Alvarez completed what has been a staggeringly impressive 12 months for him with an assist for Foden, with the academy graduate sliding the ball home.
The rout was complete in the 88th minute when Matheus Nunes produced an assist of the highest quality, cutting the ball across goal to Alvarez, who scored his second of the afternoon and became a world champion at club level to go along with his international exploits with Argentina in Qatar.
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