The last time Manchester City and Arsenal met in the League Cup final, Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta sat side by side on the sidelines at Wembley, as head coach and assistant coach respectively, before celebrating their City side’s crushing 3-0 victory over the Gunners, which saw them win England’s first trophy of the Guardiola era. This crushing victory only highlighted the growing gap between the two clubs.
Manchester City and Arsenal had never considered each other rivals before, until Sheikh Mansour and the United Arab Emirates set their sights on the blue half of Manchester and quickly established a new empire to rival the established order, of which the Gunners were one of the proud leaders.
City’s already impressive conquest of English football was accelerated by Guardiola’s appointment, and Arsenal risked finding themselves relegated to second place. That was before Arteta switched sides and returned to the club where he had spent the final years of his playing career.
Having observed Arsenal’s decline under Arsene Wenger from the inside, Arteta was best placed to orchestrate the club’s renaissance. He developed his own critical outlook and, as manager, reshaped Arsenal in his image. The Spaniard has moved away from the irresistible but often naive style that Wenger was famous for and adopted a more scientific view of football, favoring physical power and efficiency on set pieces over joie de vivre.
Love him or hate him, Arteta transformed Arsenal into a formidable force that held City back and outran them. The Gunners are nine points ahead of Guardiola’s side in the title race and are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, while the Blues are licking their wounds after another elimination against Real Madrid.
On Sunday at Wembley, Arsenal will hope to consolidate all the progress made under Arteta and beat City in the Carabao Cup final to win the first of what could be an incredible quadruple. Guardiola meanwhile admitted that his team were, for once, the underdogs: “We are facing the best team in England, the best team in Europe. »
GOAL traces the story of a rivalry that has been brewing for years and has finally reached its climax…
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