On another day, Liverpool would have ended the match with 10 men, possibly even nine. After all, Thiago Alcantara was fortunate on his first yellow card, but when he upended Kevin De Bruyne in the second half of Sunday’s wonderful Manchester City vs. Liverpool stormer, more than a few thousand Reds were gritting their teeth and expecting the worst. Bernardo Silva certainly felt Fabinho’s presence too, with his yellow card sitting on the edge of red for a few agonizing moments.
Still, not to condone such egregious actions, they were exactly what this burgeoning rivalry needed.
Manchester City vs. Liverpool has been just too nice to rival those, well, rivalries of English football past. Call me a neanderthal, but for a rivalry to truly capture my imagination, I need a bit of needle between the two teams. I need some dreadful challenges, some huge controversies, perhaps even some box-office quotes.
Perhaps, as we settle in for Saturday’s FA Cup semifinal between these two, we can presume the seeds have been sowed for this rivalry to take its next step. After all, the football is beyond what we have arguably ever seen before in England. For four years, they have conspired to produce some of the most electrifying and dynamic technical football the Premier League has witnessed. This season alone has seen two 2-2 results that defied description.
It is possible, of course, that the quality of play is in large part due to the fact that the orchestrators have not lived in fear of their careers being ended on the studs of an opponent. Simply put, there is no Roy Keane or Patrick Vieira lurking in the midfield, salivating at the prospect of a trailing leg about to be stomped on.
I suppose we should be grateful, but didn’t that add something to the recipe of a great rivalry?
Manchester United and Arsenal bossed the Premier League in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, and to put it bluntly: they despised each other. One such encounter is known as the "Battle of Old Trafford." On another occasion, an unknown Arsenal heel tossed a slice of pizza at Alex Ferguson (he had not been Knighted by that point, else the perpetrator would surely have been taken to The Tower). And with that, “Pizzagate” was born. Who can forget Keane and Viera’s bust-up in the tunnel BEFORE one such match? Jose Mourinho’s arrival at Chelsea resulted in a new era, and with it new rivalries were born with both United and Arsenal. Oh yes, halcyon but bloody days indeed.
Of course, these are top-of-the-table rivalries; a book could be written on some of the North London Derbies, Liverpool-Manchester United wars and Tyne Wear blood baths. Chelsea vs. Fulham had its moments, even if these hatreds rarely affected the pointy end of the table.
But Manchester City vs. Liverpool is very much about titles. In fact, combined over the last four seasons, the two have averaged 84.6 points, and that is with seven matches remaining in this season. It has been a remarkable battle, and certainly a rivalry has been born, but with managers Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp not only having huge respect for each other (Klopp, in fact, frequently tells the world that Pep is the best), they also appear to actually like each other.
The pre-match hugs between players are a little tough to bear for those of us who remember Ruud Van Nistelrooy or Martin Keown, while the post-game hugs are almost nauseating.
I live in hope, however. There were a couple of skirmishes on Sunday, and the tackles were flying in — often over the ball. Perhaps this weekend at Wembley, a rivalry will really be born.
Could the likeable De Bruyne take some liberties with the altogether lovely Sadio Mane? Maybe Phil Foden’s cherubic features get in the face of the perpetually smiling Mo Salah? I’d even happily accept a tunnel fracas between Brazil’s All-Universe goalkeeping tandem of Ederson and Alisson? Wouldn’t that add some intrigue ahead of this winter’s World Cup?
I am probably expecting too much, I should just appreciate the brilliance of the football on offer and remember that the game on the pitch is as good as it’s ever been, just as hockey is so much more fun nowadays without the bench-clearing brawls … or is it?
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