Arsenal and Liverpool handed massive boost for 25/26 title race after Guardiola nightmare
We get the impression that, for multiple and largely sound reasons, nobody has really been paying much attention to the fact there’s a Club World Cup straight after this season ends and that it doesn’t look anything like previous attempts at Club World Cups.
We get it. Mention of a tournament so transparently designed as a FIFA cashgrab and scheduled so inconveniently is generally greeted with sighs and eyerolls and grumbles about the clowns being clowns again before a renewed focus on the actual proper football that is happening now.
There’s also undeniably something in the fact that England’s representatives are Chelsea and Man City. These are huge clubs, obviously, but they still don’t and probably never will attract the attention, column inches and bandwidth occupied by Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal.
We’re pretty sure if two of those latter three were involved we’d all be hearing a lot more about the Club World Cup. As it is, Liverpool are still just about the only way the tournament has gained any kind of wider cut-through in this country thanks to Real Madrid’s attempts to get turncoat traitor Trent Alexander-Arnold to sign before the tournament.
But there’s another reason to think the Club World Cup is still a hugely significant event for Arsenal and Liverpool. Because it is one that surely hands them a massive advantage in next season’s title race.
Where previous Club World Cups – even the infamous 2000 event that forced Man United to duck out of the FA Cup – have been fairly brief mid-season affairs with just a handful of games between a handful of continental champions in which the European champions face at most one meaningfully challenging match, this is a full-scale, full-size major summer tournament.
They’ve even given it the format the actual World Cup should have, just to rub all our noses in it.
But this makes it a nightmare for Pep Guardiola. Sure, it’s a potentially lucrative one for Man City themselves with £100m on offer for the winner. But Pep could surely do without it clogging up the entire first half of the summer during what is a crucial rebuild phase that really could decide the club’s direction over the next five years.
We all kind of slept on it at the time, but with the tournament just round the corner it seems obvious now that a big part of City’s decision to go big and go early on their regeneration in January was at least as much to do with this World Cup being on the horizon as it was writing off a lost season.
Those January deals they got over the line should certainly help, because City are going to have precious little time this summer to integrate new players they bring in now. A potential seven-game post-season leaves their pre-season almost non-existent.
It’s not like coping with a summer that contains a major month-long tournament is a new challenge for a Premier League manager; but the specifics of this certainly are. Guardiola himself gets no rest, for one thing, having looked for large parts of this season like he could really do with it, while unlike a Euros or World Cup, this is a huge summer tournament that doesn’t affect the preparation of any of City’s major rivals.
Guardiola does at least retain control of his players for this tournament, but that benefit is surely significantly outweighed by the fact Arsenal and Liverpool don’t have to worry about it at all.
Even on City’s own website, in a puff piece unconvincingly proclaiming the club’s delight and excitement about the upcoming summer adventure in the USA, Guardiola is, well, guarded. Guardedola if you will. Or won’t, up to you.
In a piece where City themselves puff away about ‘a heightened sense of anticipation and excitement’ around ‘a spectacular and memorable showcase of the very best of the beautiful game’ Guardiola is clearly having none of it.
City’s word-salad assessment that ‘from the manager’s perspective the opportunity to view and experience first-hand varied football philosophies and cultures serves as the very essence of what football can bring to the world’ doesn’t quite ring true with his own words.
Literally the first quote from the great man – in a puff piece about how great this all is, remember – is this:
We will see how we finish the season and see how we arrive in that tournament together and then we will see what happens.
Not quite getting into the spirit there, Pep, old boy. Did you not get the memo? This is an opportunity to view and experience first hand varied football philosophies and cultures. It is the very essence of what football can bring to the world, i.e. money to Manchester City and FIFA and other huge clubs with no concern at all about player welfare because they’re not really important, are they?
It all feels like a tournament that’s going to sneak up on us all. It’s only a month away and nobody cares. Once it’s actually happening, and with around a third of the games – including half the knockout matches – live on Channel 5, people are going to tune in and take at least half an interest because what else are you going to do in June and July? Get into cricket? Or tennis? Or, heaven help us all, golf? Behave.
But the true impact of the tournament may only truly be known deep into next season when a summer of effort that has not been required of City’s rivals could take its toll.
The same is also true of Chelsea, but they’ll probably just buy 20 new players on eight-year contracts next week to get them through the tournament before sending 17 of them back out on loan.