After an exciting season in the Premier
League (English Football/Soccer), Manchester City F.C. stood atop the standings
and was looking today for a first league championship since 1968. Some background information is necessary to
set the stage.
After the Chicago Cubs, Manchester City might be the world’s
next most famous cursed team. The label
fans and the media have attached to the continuous heartbreak this team has
offered its fans for 132 years is “Typical City”.
Lists of their failures are available elsewhere, but the
important thing is that they have suffered the same confluence of a rabid fan
base, historically bad leadership and painfully bad luck that the Cubs have
endured. To make matters worse,
Manchester United is their crosstown rival, and is of course one of the world’s
most successful teams. Thus, a good parallel
might be if Cubs fans had to watch the White Sox in the World Series almost
every year.
The team has been known for its quirkiness. Its anthem is the not-terribly-inspiring “Blue
Moon”, its mascot is a pair of space aliens from the moon, and fans bring large
inflatables of animals or fruits (particularly bananas). They wear the colors of AC Milan as their
away uniform simply because a random assistant manager (Malcolm Allison) in the
midcentury decided they should wear the uniforms of a good team. They also have a famously good-natured fan-base,
and have won two UEFA Fair-Play first-place recognitions (a feat matched by
only Viking FK of Norway).
Today, Manchester City and their rivals Manchester United
were tied for the league lead with the final game to be played today. City held the tiebreak over United so they
required only a win in their game today.
Manchester City was playing today against Queen’s Park Rangers (QPR). City was playing at home, where in the first
18 games of the season they had won 17, drawn 1 and lost none. QPR in 18 away games had won 3, drawn 2 and
lost 13.
After a perfunctory first half, Manchester City led 1-0,
having totally dominated possession as QPR played for a draw until City scored
shortly before halftime. With the title
all but clinched, the stage was now set…for Typical City.
City’s important playmaker Yaya Toure left the game with a
hamstring injury shortly after helping cause the first-half goal. Within three minutes of the second half, QPR
scored to tie the game. It is important
to note that with a draw, QPR could clinch a place in next year’s league (which
keeps the top 17 teams of 20 and the other three are replaced by the best teams
in the league one level down).
It was thus bizarre that Joey Barton (QPR captain, has a hot
temper and has been ejected several times this season) got himself deservedly
ejected for a violent elbowing of a City player during a stoppage of play. Even more bizarrely, after receiving the
ejection he attacked another City player, and continued his one-man brawl until
he was literally removed from the pitch by stadium security. One cannot make up this stuff.
So City now had an extra player, and in typical City fashion
gave up a silly goal to a QPR team with no remaining forwards, as the stunned
crowd could only gasp in horror. Then,
City, despite continual attacks, could not score as the QPR keeper made repeated
amazing saves, and needed two goals.
Now it is important to note that the Premier League plays
the final games of the season simultaneously for all teams, so that no team knows
more about what result it needs (particularly if a draw is sufficient) compared
to the other teams. It is also important
to note that due to Barton’s antics, the City-QPR game was running behind the
other games. Particularly important was
the Manchester United-Sunderland game (which United won comfortably) and the
Bolton-Stoke game, in which Bolton needed a win plus a QPR loss to overtake QPR
and steal their place for next season.
Bolton actually held the lead in their game until Stoke managed a draw
in the last 15 minutes of the game, but with five minutes left in the City game,
the Bolton game and the United games were approaching their conclusions, and City
fans were resigned to perhaps the worst Typical City in 50 years.
Then, City scored on its 18th (!) corner of the game, and
City had life, and 3.5 minutes to score another. A minute later the QPR fans and bench saw the
official result of the Bolton draw, and burst into wild cheers as they were now
safe in the top 17. Also, several of the
QPR players who had been defending so resolutely and learned this and, between
their exhaustion and satisfaction, lost concentration (one can clearly see
several QPR players standing around in the replay!) and MCFC’s Sergio Aguero received
a great pass from Mario Balotelli and scored.
So, City won the game and stole the championship from their arch-rivals
even as United’s players and fans stood on the pitch at Sunderland waiting for
the trophy ceremony. I have been a
Manchester City fan for a long time, admittedly, but I think regardless of
their team such an incredible story is worth telling. For once, City fans experience euphoria,
while the United fans got to experience Typical City instead.
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