![]() ![]() It is, without doubt, the sort of record that should stir Argentine souls ahead of a World Cup that has particular resonance: 2022 will, after all, likely prove to be Lionel Messi’s final bow in an Argentina jersey, his last chance to emulate Diego Maradona and carry his country to the greatest prize of all.īut it must still come with a caveat. Other than that, it is played 31, won 20, drawn 11. Since succumbing to Brazil in the 2019 Copa América, Lionel Scaloni’s side’s only defeat has come against Sao Paulo’s health authorities. If the only true victory is one that is total, all-conquering, absolute, then it suggests the bar has been set a little too high, that we have somehow concocted a world in which even success can be dressed up as failure.īy the time Argentina next takes to the field - at Wembley, for a meeting with the reigning European champion, Italy - it will be nearing three years since it last lost a game. What if Liverpool emerges from this campaign with only two domestic cups? Is that enough? Klopp’s team would have missed out on the two trophies that it most covets, of course, but that is not quite the same thing as falling short. If Manchester City wins only the Premier League, would that represent disappointment? It should not, of course, but in an era defined by a gluttony for glory, it might be presented - or even feel - like an anticlimax. That raises the prospect of two teams, each with trophies to display and achievements to celebrate, being told to look back on their seasons with regret. The likelihood, even at this late stage, remains that neither of them will. As they are already set to meet directly in two of those competitions over the coming weeks, both of them, by definition, cannot succeed. The final eight weeks or so of the Premier League season has long been set up as a battle between Liverpool, pursuing a quadruple, and Manchester City, chasing a treble. That approach, though, carries with it an attendant danger, the risk that great teams - teams that have enjoyed remarkable success, that rank among the strongest the Premier League has ever seen - will somehow find themselves cast as failures: not for not winning, but for not winning enough. in the last 10 years, as well as three for Barcelona. Barcelona and Bayern have both done it twice.ĭomestic doubles - winning the league and the (main) domestic cup in the same season - are now so commonplace that they pass almost without notice: five for Bayern and four for Juventus and P.S.G. When Manchester United won its treble in 1999, it was the only team in any of what we now think of as Europe’s top five leagues to have done so (though Celtic, Ajax and PSV Eindhoven had all pulled it off previously). That has, slowly, turned this into soccer’s age of the multiplicative. Failure to do so can, with increasing frequency, cost a manager their job. That may be a streak - picking up nine or 10 titles in a row - or it may be supplementing it with a glut of other prizes. With that trophy essentially preordained, they are left to find other targets. Their domestic leagues are so hopelessly unbalanced that the destiny of the championship is rarely in any real doubt. It is not hard to trace the roots of this obsession with doubles and trebles and, now, quadruples: In several leagues across Europe, the superclub era of the last decade or so has rendered winning a single league title essentially meaningless for the likes of Paris St.-Germain, Bayern Munich and - until its self-inflicted implosion - Juventus. They were now on the cusp of following that with an even more impressive feat: becoming the first side in English history to win a domestic treble, a clean sweep of the league title and both cup competitions. Then, City had become the first team in English history to claim 100 points in a single season the players who had done it were crowned not just champions, but Centurions, too. ![]() #Rain on your parade achievements how toThe only thing left to decide was how to brand the achievement. The previous week, it had seen off the spirited challenge of Liverpool to retain the Premier League title. Pep Guardiola’s team had won the Carabao Cup, the first and the least of England’s domestic priorities, a couple months earlier. They were well aware it was tempting fate, but they had no choice: These things, after all, take time and planning.īesides, whatever happened against Watford at Wembley, there would be plenty to celebrate. They had arranged a whole day of festivities. Cup final, the club’s executives had already mapped out the route for the victory parade. ![]()
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