Manchester City Might Win a Quadruple This Year

A quadruple means something that has four elements. In football, it means winning four trophies is a single season. The four trophies being the Premier League, the FA Cup, the EFL Cup and the Champions League.

Manchester City is under the management of Pep Guardiola, also known as 'the tactical one'. The Portuguese manager joined the English side on a 3-year contract in the 2016-17 season. After a trophyless first season, he has already lead the team to win the Premier League and the EFL Cup last season.

City began their campaign with a 7-0 win over Rotherham and has worked their way up to the semi-finals and has drawn against Brighton & Hove Albion (yes that's one team). If they win this game then they play the final against Watford or Wolves (Wolverhampton Wanderers). They have already won against these opponents previously this season so this does not look very difficult for City to win. Although both Watford and Wolves are big teams but City is a superior side having better players and much more experience in the latter part of these competitions than all the three of these teams.

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Their performance in the Premier League has been top notch and Liverpool is their only competition. They are nearly 13 points clear as of 30 matches played from third-placed Tottenham. Liverpool is currently leading the table but has played a match more than City and is just 2 points ahead. Manchester City has 8 matches left to play this season with only the Manchester derby and Tottenham being a little challenging for them. None of the rest of the teams is in the top 9 of the league with Leicester occupying the 10th position. Their point advantage makes them worried about only Liverpool. But Liverpool has 7 matches to go and against big teams such as Tottenham, Chelsea and some other top 10 teams in which Liverpool have more chances to lose than Manchester City.

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Coming on to the most coveted tournament of European Football, the Uefa Champions League. The North-western English club has reached the quarter-finals of the championship defeating German side Schalke on 10-2 aggregate from both the legs in the round of 16. In the quarters they have drawn against their domestic rivals Tottenham and are favourites to win the game. If they go through this match they meet Juventus or Ajax (Juventus are favourites to win against Ajax) in the semi-final stages. Manchester city has better players in all the areas of the field than Tottenham do. So this fixture does not look much challenging to Guardiola’s side. The semi-final if against Ajax will be a cakewalk for City but if against Juventus it will be a little tough with the world’s best winger Cristiano Ronaldo playing for the Italian side. But football is a team game and City does not seem to have a disadvantage to anyone other than CR7.

The final might be against either domestic rivals Liverpool or Manchester United or Spanish giants, Barcelona. To be honest, this will be difficult for City to conquer but if they win the rest of the tournaments then that confidence will have a big part to play and the rest depends on the tactical genius of Pep Guardiola. He has played with Barcelona before and so has an idea of how some of the players might perform.

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Manchester City is one team to have powerful players in each position of the field. At the top, they have Argentine striker Sergio Aguero who has helped City to win in some very uncomfortable situations. He is a goal machine and has scored 11 hattricks in the Premier League which the second highest after Alan Shearer. Their two wingers Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling have fantastic pace in their feet and can run almost into the box through a defence and push the ball in for a pass.

The midfield, one of the strongest in England, consists of Kevin De Bruyne who is one the best players in the world in that position. Then they have Spanish World Cup winner David Silva who is an experienced midfielder and also can play as a striker. He has scored over 50 goals in the Premier League. They have signed Riyad Mahrez from Leicester, City’s most expensive signing of £60m. He has won the best player of the Carabao Cup although he didn’t play the final. Next is the Brazilian, Fernandinho who is well known for his long ranger shots and great passing range.

The defence of the team is also very powerful with their Captain Vincent Kompany in the centre. They also have Benjamin Mendy the world cup winner from France and Nicolas Otamendi. The team has a goal difference of 58 in the Premier League credit for which goes to the rock-solid defenders who make it difficult for other teams to score and their own forward who score lots of goals in every match.

Manchester City has the advantage of having one of the best runners on the field and a great passing play devised by their manager Pep Guardiola. The team has strong players in all areas of the field making them a threat for all the teams they play against. They have always been a team scoring goals instead of a few players being regular goal scorers. What makes the squad special is that almost all the players score goals for the team highlighting the team game factor of football instead of a one or two-man show.

Needless to say a quadruple for any team is a dream come true. What makes it more special is that Manchester City might have shown dominance over domestic football but have never lifted the European Championship trophy, the Champions League. They have reached the semi-final before but were defeated by Real Madrid in the 2015-16 season. They have a star-studded team and it would not be wrong to have such expectations of them.

Moreover, no team in England have ever been able to win a quadruple. Celtics are the only team in the UK to have won a quadruple in the 1966-67 season winning the Scottish League, the Scottish FA Cup, Scottish League Cup and also the European Cup ( Champions league formerly known as). So if Manchester City can pull off such an act then they make history.

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