Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
On this day (25 October) last year a hard-fought draw with Dortmund ensured Manchester City were Group G winners, qualifying for the knockout stages of teh Champions League with a game to spare. A crowd of 81,000 watched this goalless game. Highlights below:
https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/borussia-dortmund-manchester-city-highlights-63802321
City went on to win the Champions League that season of course! There are plenty of articles on here about the 2023 Champions League such as:
I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s (19 September 2023) game in the Champions League between the reigning European champions Manchester City (and treble winners – will we ever get tired of remembering that?) and Red Star Belgrade. The Blues won 3-1 and, to be frank, could have scored a lot more had it not been for the heroics of Omri Glazer in the opposition goal (and a few weird finishes but it was a miserably wet night too!).
Despite being a goal behind at half time it felt as if the Blues had enough to win the match from the outset and the the second half commenced in style when Julian Alvarez met an Erling Haaland throughball, rounded the keeper and prodded home the equaliser. This was about 73 seconds into the second half. Many Blues missed the goal as they were still returning from the toilets and the bars!
Alvarez netted a second when his free-kick from the left flew past ‘keeper Glazer after about 1 hour. Then after 73 minutes Rodri did what Rodri does best when he sent a curling strike into the net. It was another classic, just like the final in Istanbul. You can read what Istanbul (and relive that night) meant here:
City have posted highlights of the game here:
https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/manchester-city-red-star-belgrade-highlights-63830758
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DonateOn this day (15 September) in 2021 RB Leipzig and Manchester City met for the first time competitively. That game was played at the Etihad Stadium in the competition’s group stage (Group A). It was Pep Guardiola’s 300th game as manager and City achieved a 6-3 victory which meant that the Blues became the quickest English team to achieve 50 wins in the Champions League. Nice work!
Nathan Ake opened the scoring with a powerful header in the 16th minute, becoming the tenth different City player to score that season. The lead was increased twelve minutes later when Nordi Mukiele scored what was described by the BBC as a ‘calamitous own goal… The France defender got his angles horribly wrong as his attempted header back to his keeper following Kevin de Bruyne’s delivery ended up in the net.’
Nkunku scored for Leipzig three minutes before half time but City restored their two goal lead by half time with Riyad Mahrez netting a penalty (45+2) awarded after Lukas Klostermann handled.
Leipzig’s Nkunku headed home his second to reduce the deficit six minutes after the restart, but City hit back five minutes later as Jack Grealish scored with a delightful finish on his Champions League debut. Afterwards he commented about the whole experience: ‘I loved it. I’ve been waiting a while. The past few weeks, I couldn’t wait for this game. It’s a great night.’
Talking about the goal Grealish said: ‘The ball came to me and when I’m in that position, running into the area I’d back myself one on one against anyone to have a go and it paid off. I had a few in the first half that were blocked.’
Former Paris St-Germain player Nkunku scored again (73rd minute) to complete his hat-trick, but Joao Cancelo added a stunning 25 yard effort for City two minutes later. The former City player Angelino was dismissed for a second bookable offence four minutes later and then substitute Gabriel Jesus tapped in at the far post to make it six for City with only five minutes of normal time remaining.
The match ended 6-3 but in truth City’s victory was much more convincing than the three conceded goals suggest. Grealish loved the whole experience of his first Champions League match: ‘It was one of those games. It had absolutely everything. In the end we’re delighted to get the win against a good team full of energy and young players… I’m delighted to come away with the three points – and the goal and assist… I went to check the result from the other game [Club Bruges 1-1 PSG] and it shows anything can happen in the Champions League. It’s why it’s such a wonderful competition.’
Leipzig’s hat-trick scorer Christopher Nkunku was not as positive as Grealish however: ‘Every mistake was punished. We made a lot of individual errors. I scored three goals but every time they scored again right away. We needed to show more concentration. We knew the quality Manchester City have.’
For City boss Pep Guardiola there was disappointment that three goals had been conceded and he admitted: ‘Leipzig never give up. They have a special way to attack. They play all or nothing. You never have the feeling it’s over. We scored a few minutes after they scored… and it helped us a lot. They have a young team, so aggressive, so strong. A fantastic team. Leipzig give a good message to football. The quality of the players was better today and that’s why we won.’
In the aftermath of Manchester City’s 2023 Champions League success I hoped to find a Blue who had been to both the 2023 final and the club’s previous European trophy success in 1970. I was eventually contacted by Colin Smith who did go to both (and he also went to Porto in 2021 too!) and we decided to have a chat about it. We ended up talking for about one hour comparing the finals and discussing Colin’s trips both as a youngster in 1970 and then as a grandfather in 2023.
The interview took place a while ago and at that time Colin had been to three MCFC European finals. Since then of course he has also been to Athens to watch City win the Super Cup too.
You can now hear our interview here. It’s well worth a listen, especially if you’re a fan who didn’t get chance to go to those finals. Here goes:
I hope you enjoy the interview. I have other interviews (both audio and written) here on my website available to subscribers, so why not subscribe? Details here:
My latest article for Manchester Confidential has been posted. You can read it here:
https://confidentials.com/manchester/the-champions-league-final-uefas-organisation
Delighted to see that this film has been posted by Manchester City & UEFA:
Tonight’s online talk and celebration of Manchester City’s 2023 Champions League success is completely sold out (it was free but you know what I mean!). If all goes to plan I will be posting it as a separate recording here on my website at some point. If you didn’t get tickets but would like to relive the Champions League final I have written several articles on this which you can read here:
This was the story about tonight’s talk:
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DonateOn Wednesday 21 June at 6pm (UK time) come and join me for one hour of discussion on Manchester City FC’s 2023 Champions League final. Let’s celebrate and remember the positives of this remarkable achievement. Lots have already reserved their place and there are only a few more places left, so register now if you want to attend.
As with previous Manchester City history talks I’ll spend a bit of time discussing the significance of the success and will then open the session up. I’m keen to hear your experiences of the night and what this meant to you as a City fan, whether you travelled to Istanbul or watched from home. Every Blue is welcome!
Come and celebrate this incredible and historic achievement.
Sign up to join this free online event where I will discuss the significance of this momentous night in Mancunian history. This hour will include the opportunity to share your stories and memories as I am keen to hear your thoughts.
Lots suffered horrendous conditions both before and after the match BUT this night won’t be discussing those (maybe we’ll do that another day?). You can add your comments/experiences here:
Champions League Final: UEFA’s Travel Incompetence
Instead the idea is to celebrate and remember the stuff that might get lost along the way. Make no mistake this was a truly significant occasion and one we should celebrate for the rest of our lives.
To ensure we have enough opportunity to hear from each other the capacity is restricted to the first 40 people who register. This is free to join but there’s also the opportunity to pay a donation if you’d like to support my website, work and research. No obligation though – this is about celebrating a wonderful event!
The event will be live on Zoom on 21/6/23 at 6pm and a link will be sent to all those who have registered for the event beforehand (probably earlier that day). THIS WILL BE EMAILED OUT SEPARATELY – NOT VIA EVENTBRITE.
The session will be recorded and a recording will appear on my website at a later date. There is the possibility that everyone who speaks will be recorded and included in the video.
You can find out more about previous talks here:
https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/history-talks/
You can register for Wednesday’s celebration here:
I don’t know where to start with this but I wanted to get a few thoughts down ahead of the celebration chat I’ve planned for Wednesday (see link below)… This has been an absolutely incredible few weeks for fans of Manchester City and it’s also be mentally and physically draining too. It will be in the coming weeks that we get to relax and look back on it all but I wanted to get some top of the head thoughts down now while they’re buzzing around. So here goes…
The history of football moves at a frantic pace and there are key moments (Tueart, Dickov, Aguerooooooooooooo for example) that are era defining or represent the beginning or the end of an era. This last week is another of those with Rodri’s goal at Istanbul finally bringing City the Champions League that we’ve all craved for so long (but pretended at times that we didn’t).
Manchester City are now Champions Of Europe and, finally, Villa fans can stop singing their song to us! There were many occasions over the decades since City’s last European trophy that the club had a squad of players that were capable of major European success but sadly circumstances worked against them. There were also times when the club suffered major failures but I’ll forget those for the moment.
Depending on when you were born you tend to fall into three rough categories of City fan (there’s more than this but I hope you get my point):
The media tend to portray City as a failing 3rd tier club that got lucky, but the truth is that that was only one season and it was only in the late 1990s that United overtook City in terms of number of seasons at the highest level (I’ll explain the numbers another day but prior to the late 1990s United had spent more seasons between 1894 and then in the second tier than City had !).
In the 1970s City won three times as many trophies as United and even in the 1990s/2000s the Blues only spent 6 seasons out of the top flight. This was two spells (5 years and 1 year) and that 5 year spell was the longest period the Blues had ever endured out of the top flight.
This season finding European success has lifted everything in a global sense. I’ve talked previously (way back in 2012) about City being the club for the new generation and that is absolutely how it is panning out. Add to the Champions League the FA Cup – where City’s traditional rivals United were vanquished – and the Premier League (where City’s old rival from the 1930s looked certain to win the League for much of the season) and this has been a truly brilliant season.
https://gjfootballarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-champions-league-final-sd-480p.mov
City and United are now the only clubs ever to have achieved THE treble – a truly great achievement that many thought impossible. Add to that that Guardiola’s Blues have previously become the ONLY team to win a domestic treble and you get to see that this isn’t simply the greatest ever Manchester City side but one of, if not THE, greatest ever side in English football.
We’ve had the Viking Call (the best team in the land and all the world) chant for almost 50 years now but, for the first time, the words are absolutely true (though we haven’t yet had a competitive fixture to determine the best world team of course – that will come!).
If you’d like to come and join me for an online celebration then please do:
These are truly great times to be a Blue. Enjoy!
On Wednesday 21 June at 6pm (UK time) come and join me for one hour of discussion on Manchester City FC’s 2023 Champions League final. Let’s celebrate and remember the positives of this remarkable achievement.
As with previous Manchester City history talks I’ll spend a bit of time discussing the significance of the success and will then open the session up. I’m keen to hear your experiences of the night and what this meant to you as a City fan, whether you travelled to Istanbul or watched from home. Every Blue is welcome!
Come and celebrate this incredible and historic achievement.
Sign up to join this free online event where I will discuss the significance of this momentous night in Mancunian history. This hour will include the opportunity to share your stories and memories as I am keen to hear your thoughts.
Lots suffered horrendous conditions both before and after the match BUT this night won’t be discussing those (maybe we’ll do that another day?). You can add your comments/experiences here:
Champions League Final: UEFA’s Travel Incompetence
Instead the idea is to celebrate and remember the stuff that might get lost along the way. Make no mistake this was a truly significant occasion and one we should celebrate for the rest of our lives.
To ensure we have enough opportunity to hear from each other the capacity is restricted to the first 40 people who register. This is free to join but there’s also the opportunity to pay a donation if you’d like to support my website, work and research. No obligation though – this is about celebrating a wonderful event!
The event will be live on Zoom on 21/6/23 at 6pm and a link will be sent to all those who have registered for the event beforehand (probably earlier that day). THIS WILL BE EMAILED OUT SEPARATELY – NOT VIA EVENTBRITE.
The session will be recorded and a recording will appear on my website at a later date. There is the possibility that everyone who speaks will be recorded and included in the video.
You can find out more about previous talks here:
https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/history-talks/
You can register for Wednesday’s celebration here:
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