Ssometimes sport can be a stage for the most beautiful dramas. It can be exciting, it can inspire, it can move. It can provide the most insightful life insights and showcase the full potential of the human brain, human heart, and human body. Who does not feel the lump in the throat, the warm glow of shared experience, the great sense of human potential when they remember that Bob Champion won the National on Aldaniti, Dennis Taylor who surpassed Steve Davis, or Ben Stokes on Headingley? Sport is a fairytale land where dreams can become flesh.
There was once a football club in an industrial city in the north of England. They were not very good – in fact, they had a comic tendency to accept failure, to find ways to lose other clubs that they could not think of – but they were generally very well-meaning. Then they were taken over by a politician from overseas, who was very rich, and then by the royal family of another foreign state, who was even richer.
The state has denied the allegations about its human rights record, but no one really cared about the allegations, perhaps because the royals spent a lot of money to improve the infrastructure, appoint one of the greatest coaches in the world and very very talented soccer players for sale. Some people said they were spending too much money, but in the end they were allowed to play in the Champions League. The club won many trophies and rejected its previous tendency to slapstick, but they could never win in Europe. The Champions League has become a quest.
There was once another football club from the capital of France. For many years people laughed about it because it was a young club and no one in the capital of France really liked football that much. Then they were taken over by the royal family of a foreign state, which was very rich.
They denied the allegations about their human rights record, but no one really cared about the accusations, perhaps because the royals spent a lot of money to buy very talented and famous footballers. Some people said they were spending too much money, but eventually they were allowed to continue playing in the Champions League. The club won many trophies, so many people said they made the French league boring, but they could never win in Europe. The Champions League has become a quest.
These parties will meet in the semi-finals of this year’s Champions League. Manchester City vs. Paris Saint-Germain, Abu Dhabi vs. Qatar, which can be described as the derby for sports laundry. From a football standpoint, there is plenty to look forward to. For City, it is only a second time in the last four and the first time since 2016, which was also when Pep Guardiola last appeared at this stage. Ten years after his last Champions League success, the coach who probably remains the best in the world is a third in arrears. City’s victory on Wednesday was as much about their own neuroses as about Borussia Dortmund.
PSG may have escaped their own memories of past failures by reaching the final season, but beating Bayern Munich on away goals nonetheless represents their best European performance over two legs. Mauricio Pochettino, who already has one famous Champions League win over Guardiola’s City on his CV, has been the next man for several years (he is less than a year younger than Guardiola); now he has a super club to run, the excuses fall away. The challenge of winning the Champions League is minimal.
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City’s recent European history consists of a team that is very talented and vulnerable to quick interruptions. Guardiola, forced to some extent by the Covid calendar, countered this season by easing the intensity of the press. But, as they have shown against Bayern, no side is as equipped to expose any remaining fragility as the PSG of Kylian Mbappé, Neymar and Ángel Di María.
But it really is not a game that can only be viewed from a sporting point of view. It is a tie underlined by the intrusion of states that can be said that football, and the composition of large groups, is seen as a tool to improve their global reputation.