Pep Guardiola won his fourth straight League Cup title today, as his Manchester City side joined Liverpool as the only clubs to ever win four in a row. Sunday’s cup final win, 1-0 over Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley Stadium, also gave City eight League Cup trophies all-time, tying them once again with Liverpool for the most won by a single club.
After the match, Guardiola admitted that he had one eye on the upcoming week, when City will begin their Champions League semifinal tie against Paris Saint-Germain. However, it also labelled “the most important title of the season,” and it wasn’t the UCL, nor the trophy he won today.
It’s the piece of silverware that City has one hand on already, the Premier League.
“We cannot deny it, you have one eye on the Champions League,” the Catalonian said. “[But] Every game we take seriously, or it is impossible to win four Carabao Cups in a row.
“Now we rest and prepare the semifinal against PSG, after that we are two wins away from trying to win again the most important title of the season. The Premier League is nicest one, it’s the one I am so proud of. We are close. We need two victories. Between this crazy schedule, between the games against PSG, we’ll try to win the first one against Crystal Palace.”
Pep Guardiola won the league with City in 2017-18 (breaking all the important records in the process) and 2018-19, so this will be his third. It is simply too late and the chasm is too wide for Manchester United to catch them. However, he still has never won the Champions League with a team that doesn’t have Lionel Messi on it, but this year seems to be his best chance yet.
Last year really looked like it was City’s best opportunity, but again, they fell well short. Now is definitely the time, as Real Madrid are much worse than they’ve been in receny years, Bayern Munich are out, and Paris Saint-Germain are banged up.
Just like two years ago, they contended for an unprecedented quadruple late in the season. They had to settle for a domestic treble, the first even won by an English club. Another, bigger treble could be in the cards for them this season.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.