1st in EPL, Carabao Cup finalists, FA Cup semi-finalists and UCL q/finalists, are Man City Europe’s best team?
Manchester City progressed to the semi-finals of the FA Cup on Saturday, few days after reaching the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League while they’re already in the Carabao Cup final.
And, oh yes, a 14-point gap at the top of the Premier League table with just 10 games left means the league title is all but wrapped up.
So are the Citizens the best team in Europe going by the way they seem to steamroll every opposition before them?
Fighting on all four fronts, Pep Guardiola’s men are favourites for all for titles and could be up for an unprecedented quadruple this season.
City’s first opportunity to lift a trophy this season arrives on April 25, when they take on Tottenham in a delayed Carabao Cup final. They may, though, have already clinched one title by then.
Going into the international break, City look destined to win their third championship in the last four years and, if results go in their favour over the coming weeks, they could be confirmed champions by the end of April.
Then there’s the Champions League, where they have been drawn against Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-finals. Despite their impressive form this season, it’s worth noting that City have only made it past this stage once in their history.
Should they knock Dortmund out in the last eight, City would encounter either Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-finals, presenting perhaps their toughest test of the remaining sides in the competition.
If City do make it to their first Champions League final on May 29 with the Premier League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup already in the bag, they would have the opportunity of being the first English club to achieve a quadruple.
Manchester United are the only English side to have ever completed a treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League – doing so in 1998/99 – but that was without the League Cup.
In a broader sense, only one European team has ever won the European Cup, domestic league and two cup competitions – Celtic in 1967/68.
If they’re able to pull this feat off then Manchester City would have deserved their seat among the pantheon of Europe’s greatest.
