The three major trophies available to Manchester City

Manchester City win the treble: How did Pep Guardiola's side do it?


Manchester City became the second English side to complete the treble with victory over Inter in the Champions League final.

It crowned City European champions for the first time in their history, adding to their Premier League triumph and FA Cup secured in the past few weeks.

The result also ended City's 55-year wait for any form of trophy from competition on the continent - that coming after their 1970 European Cup Winners' Cup success.

A remarkable achievement that not only wrote their name in the history books, but also matched what local rivals Manchester United achieved in 1999.

It's also the second time Pep Guardiola has secured a treble as a manager, with Barcelona winning LaLiga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey under his guidance in 2008/09.

Here, we look back on how City did it.

Premier League

City wrapped up their fifth Premier League title in the last six years, but it looked as if they were going to miss out altogether.

It was Arsenal who not only proved to be their biggest threat, but the team who led the title race for the large majority of the season.

Yet, after months of it looking as if the battle would go right down to the wire, it was City who secured top spot with three games left to play as Arsenal were beaten by Nottingham Forest in their penultimate game of the campaign.

The 94 goals scored in their 38 games was six better than the Gunners, while the 33 goals against was the joint-lowest in the division (with Newcastle). However, they had a superior expected goals against (xGA) figure (37.5 to Newcastle's 44.0).

It left them with a staggering +61 goal difference for their 89 points, and their expected goal difference (xGD) of +47.8 was also a league-high total.

They would finish five points clear of Arsenal, although heavy rotation played a part across the three games in their final week as they put focus onto other competitions.

FA Cup

Not only did City win the FA Cup, they did so without conceding a goal until Bruno Fernandes' converted penalty in the final.

Their route saw them hosting Graham Potter's Chelsea in the third round - a game they would win 4-0 - before hosting Arsenal in their next outing.

As would turn out to be the case in both of their league meetings, it was City who got the better of the Gunners thanks to Nathan Ake's second-half strike.

It was a run of three teams from the Sky Bet Championship afterwards, with Bristol City, Burnley and Sheffield United all brushed aside with ease.

Ilkay Gundogan scored a brace in the final at Wembley - the first of which marked the fastest goal in final history at just 12 seconds. The second was another stunning volley from outside the area.

Focus turned to Istanbul almost instantly after the full-time whistle though - shouts of "one more to go" could be heard from City's players as they celebrated on the pitch.

Champions League

Whatever happened, City's season would always be judged by their performance in the Champions League.

It's the one trophy that has evaded Guardiola since his arrival in Manchester. Defeat in the 2020 final being the closest they came to finally lifting it.

The road to Istanbul had been a difficult one, but once they reached the final it seemed clear that it was only going one way. Bookmakers offered odds of 1/5 on a City win - an implied probability of 83%.

Conceding just two goals in their six group games, a stunning 7-0 home win wrapped up an 8-1 aggregate success over Leipzig in the round of 16.

Then came the real test, but they answered it by killing the tie at the halfway point with a convincing 3-0 win over German champions Bayern Munich. A 1-1 draw away from home ensured progression.

Guardiola's side followed the pattern of the rest of their away games when facing Real Madrid, as a 1-1 result in the first leg made it five consecutive European draws on the road. However, as had been the case throughout the knockouts, a comfortable home win followed and set up their shot at history.

And then onto the final, where Inter proved to be a much tougher test than the odds suggested.

City struggled to deal with their press, the 'tactical battle' mooted on commentary was more Guardiola struggling to find a way through Simone Inzaghi's system.

In the second-half of what had been an uneventful contest, up stepped Rodri. The midfielder made no mistake with his first time strike as he found the bottom corner.

The nerves were evident in both Istanbul and Manchester, yet City held on thanks to a remarkable miss from Romelu Lukaku and heroics from Enderson, ending their wait for Europe's top club prize, and in doing so securing a remarkable treble.

What about the quadruple?

The quadruple conversation was never a serious one when City were eliminated from the Carabao Cup at the quarter-final stage in January, but a look back now will make them realise what a missed opportunity it was.

Southampton - who finished bottom of the Premier League - were the team to stop them winning all four trophies. Remarkably, that came during Nathan Jones' short 14-game spell in charge.

Rotation played a part but it was a strong City line-up that, on paper, should have got the job done.

They had Joao Cancelo, Kyle Walker, Gundogan, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish and World Cup winner Julian Alvarez all in the starting XI.

Not only were they beaten 2-0 by the Saints, City failed to post a shot on target across the entire contest, despite seeing a huge 72% of the possession.

They had won games against Chelsea and Liverpool - the latter in a 3-2 thriller - prior to their exit on the south coast.


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