Love, hate, good, evil, brotherhood, betrayal: Saturday’s derby between the blue of Manchester City and red of Manchester United has all the trappings to be unforgettable.
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With bated breath, the footballing world waits for what is the first round in a series of bouts between heavyweight contenders promising to be at least biblical in its storytelling. To call this rejuvenated Manchester derby a rivalry is wholly inadequate and limits a confrontation so fraught with plot lines and permutations, it’s to demean it to the realm of mortals. Each season, Manchester City and Manchester United play each other twice with title implications on the line. It’s not every season Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho command these two footballing powers, and if Saturday’s match is as good as advertised, people will wish this contest continues every season into perpetuity.
Enter Guardiola and Mourinho. Both studied and worshiped the beautiful game at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, one of cathedrals of football with a long history of holy men: Messi, Ronaldo, Cruyff, Maradona, Rivaldo, Xavi, Ronaldinho. They left as allies; they reunited as foes.
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After orchestrating European glory at Porto and a Premier League titles at Chelsea, Mourinho had the reins at Inter Milan when he next faced Guardiola, who had proved himself in Italy, Qatar and Mexico and was back and now in charge of Barca in 2009. At the two clubs, the duo jousted four times in the same UEFA Champions League, with Guardiola winning more matches (2) but Mourinho ultimately prevailing and eliminating the Catalan club from the competition. Then, a year later, Mourinho relocated to Barca’s arch-nemesis Real Madrid. From there, their enmity became fully baked in the oven of “El Clásico” for three heated years, as Guardiola took five victories to Mourinho’s two in 11 meetings. Both managers eventually moved on from Spain — Mourinho returned to Chelsea and Guardiola took over at Bayern Munich. The two again battled in the UEFA Super Cup in 2013, where Guardiola’s German squad edged a slight but not insignificant victory, 5-4 on penalties. Now, both find themselves on opposite sides of Manchester about to cross swords yet again.
But this feud is not only about these men, the towering figures that they are, but also the clubs and their statures. City is the upstart, having received the financial backing of the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008. Flushed with affluence, the Blues bought big-time talent, leading the club to unprecedented success: two domestic titles and two League Cup trophies and one for the FA Cup. Last season, City made it all the way to the semifinals of the Champions League, before bowing out to eventual winner Real Madrid. Guardiola, whose arrival was announced months before the end of the campaign, took over as manager this summer to take City to the European promised land and become truly one of Europe’s elite clubs.
While ambitious City, like ancient Rome, is rising, United plays the role of immemorial and distinguished Carthage. The club is looking to recapture the excellence that was a given under the great Alex Ferguson. Stints under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal resulted in the Reds missing out on the Champions League two out of the last three years, with only one FA Cup title as consolation. Since the announcement of Guardiola’s arrival at City, United quickly tried to rebuild and rearm. After Mourinho departed again from Chelsea last season, abandoning ship before she went down in flames, United brought in the mercurial manager to captain its crew of players. Heaven and earth was also moved to bring in elite midfielder Paul Pogba. With Mourinho, United also lassoed the superstar forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose presence bestows the derby with an added dramatic dimension.
Guardiola and Ibrahimovic have history. The two never got along at Barcelona. Their antagonism is probably best encapsulated in this vintage Zlatan sneer: “When you buy me, you are buying a Ferrari. If you drive a Ferrari, you put premium petrol in the tank, you hit the motorway and you step on the gas. Guardiola filled up with diesel and took a spin in the countryside. He should have bought a Fiat.” So, Ibrahimovic is the disgraced pupil, the apprentice who succumbed to the Dark Side of the Force and is seeking vengeance. Call him Palpatine if you like, Mourinho, well practiced in the footballing dark arts, is no stranger to being conniving and indeed has the shrewdness of a Sith Lord. It’s not at all unexpected to see him seduce Zlatan with the opportunity to satiate his gigantic ego, channeling that distaste for Guardiola to defeat the only manager seemingly capable of regularly besting “the special one.”
If all this wasn’t enough, Guardiola looks a tad vulnerable. Not only does he lack his attacking Ferrari in Sergio Agüero, thanks to a three-match suspension, there’s the uncertainty that City can coalesce in time to face its toughest challenge of the season thus far, with Claudio Bravo and possibly Leroy Sané and Ilkay Gundogan making their debuts. Bravo especially better play well to justify the controversial ousting of Joe Hart. There’s a sense that City is still a project under the fastidious Guardiola. His perfectionism and uncompromising approach to playing the game is about to be tried by the ultimate pragmatist, Mourinho, in a grudge match pitting their vastly different philosophies against one another in a near perfect setup epitomizing both contradictory styles.
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So there you have it. There’s Ali vs. Frazier for boxing, Manning vs. Brady in the NFL, Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky in chess, Hannibal Barca vs. Scipio Africanus at Zama, Carthage vs. Rome during the Punic Wars, Ash vs. Gary in Pokemon, Seto Kaiba and Yugi Moto in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Batman vs. Superman in comics, now this personal and mythic contest between Guardiola and Mourinho in the city of Manchester. On Saturday, the lurid saga continues, as the next verse in the legendary ballad of Guardiola vs. Mourinho is about to play itself out.