Not even he could have expected this. Not even an athlete with the ambitions and confidence of Erling Haaland could have imagined so much success so quickly. The League Cup and Dixie Dean. Those are the two things he couldn’t do. The smallest cup and a scoring record from 1928 that may never be broken. The 22-year-old has fixed the rest at the first attempt: the league title, the FA Cup, the Champions League. He has become top scorer in the Champions League and player of the year in England. He has the most goals in one Premier League season since the league started in 1992. He came to England, looked around and then he won most things worth winning. If English football were a computer game, Haaland has completed it on the first try. At the same time, the Champions League final against Inter on Saturday was a game he had to win. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Haaland won the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in his first season. Photo: OZAN KOSE / AFP The table is set Because even though it means a lot to Haaland to become league and cup champion, it’s no secret that the Champions League has hung clearly the highest. Not only because it is the most difficult to win, but because Manchester City would have won everything else without Haaland. Last year he signed for the best team in England. The table was set. They had bought him to win this tournament – and he had got there for the same reason. Jærbuen has scored 52 goals in 53 games, but without the Champions League, people could argue that City won as much without him. Especially since he has been on a goal drought in recent weeks, with one goal in seven games from the start, including an anonymous performance in the final. Now the mission is accomplished. The debate is dead. It is engraved on the trophy that Haaland has made the team better. City have delivered a season approaching perfection. PERFECTION: It can hardly be done better than what Haaland and City have shown this season. Photo: MURAD SEZER / Reuters March Only nine times before has a team in Europe won the three biggest tournaments in one season. Only Manchester United have managed it before in England. That journey was crammed with drama and late goals. With City, the road here has seemed like an unstoppable march where all resistance has been swept away. Credit to Arsenal who gave them fight in the league. All credit to United who lost in the FA Cup final. Kudos to Inter who made Saturday’s match so even. The rest have been swept aside as weak junior teams. Even giants such as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have been overtaken and outclassed. A team is not supposed to reach the Champions League final with aggregate results such as 8–1, 4–1 and 5–1. City have shown almost no weaknesses. It may have something to do with Guardiola’s many painful defeats. The cheat code Few have suffered as much in this tournament as Guardiola. Although he won it with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011, he has become more famous for all the times he has not won. Before Saturday, he had never lifted the bucket without Lionel Messi. And guess if he got to hear it. There are plenty of fans who believe that Guardiola is overrated, that he wins leagues only because he spends a lot of money, that Messi’s brilliance gave him a cheat code. Guardiola has lost one final and six semi-finals. He has missed the away goal three times. The margins have often gone against him. Weaknesses have been exploited: Barcelona could struggle at set pieces, Bayern could be countered. Guardiola has often been accused of lacking a Plan B. REFUTATION: Anyone who thought Guardiola only won the Champions League because of Messi was refuted by Haaland and the rest of the City players. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP So he has solved the problem by creating a team that can do everything; which is so good that it almost doesn’t need luck. If you lie at the back, City finds small openings or hits a Norwegian tankhead. If you stand tall, the same man starts in the back room. If you want to counter, they run you up. If you focus on set-pieces and long passes, they have three stoppers and two robust midfield anchors who fight you in the low. Never has Guardiola created a more physical team. And yet City play a football that is unquestionably his. Few have done as good a job of frustrating City as Inter. The final, which was supposed to be almost a formality for the light blues, could just as well have gone the other way. But it wasn’t enough. In the one game where City needed luck, they had it. The season for sports washing There are of course other sides to this triumph. We are still awaiting the verdict on whether City breached a number of the Premier League’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018, which City denies having done. If they are found guilty, this year’s titles will be built on several years of cheating. It’s a shame, but right, that you have to constantly keep this issue in the back of your mind. One should also not forget that this is a milestone for the United Arab Emirates and its plan to divert attention away from the state’s many gross violations of human rights. Although privately owned by Sheikh Mansour, a member of the ruling royal family, City is linked to the state via identity and sponsors. They play at the Etihad Stadium with kits featuring Etihad Airways, the state-owned airline. They have sponsors linked to the state investment fund, Mubadala, which is run by Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, the chairman of City. ATTENDED: Sheik Mansour, the owner of Manchester City, was at his second City game since taking over in 2008. Photo: MOLLY DARLINGTON / Reuters This title they have dreamed of since Sheikh Mansour, who was at his second ever City game on Saturday , bought the club in 2008. It has been the sporting goal behind all the billions that have been spent. Add in the PR triumphs of neighbors Qatar and Saudi Arabia – such as the World Cup, Newcastle’s fourth-place finish in the Premier League and the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo – this has been an extraordinary season for sports laundering. New elite It is another debate how much the players and coaches should be charged for such political factors. There is also a big question as to who will stop City from winning even more. Before, City were the “nouveau riche” who challenged the established elite. Now City earns the most in the world and has five league titles in six years. They are the elite. This project is not finished. Guardiola and Haaland will stay. The stable is not old. New players will probably come in. Perhaps the rivals’ biggest hope is that City have won enough; that they are fed up with success now that the Champions League is finally in the works. But one suspects that the key figures are too hungry to fall into that trap. Guardiola is unlikely to rest until he has won two more Champions League titles, which would give him more than any other manager. And Haaland? If we know him correctly, he is only just getting started.
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