Roy Keane, Sky Sports analyst, praised Jude Bellingham's remarkable performance with the England national team during the great 7-0 win over Croatia in the European Nations League.
Bellingham scored one goal and made three assists, becoming the first midfielder to score four goalscoring contributions in one match with England since David Platt against San Marino in February 1993, according to Opta network statistics.
“I think there is a lot to come from Bellingham, and he can become one of the greatest players of all time,” Keane said.
He added: “His mentality with England recently... I was praising him for being great when he has the ball, but what he does without the ball is also very important. “This raises the level of all the players around him.”
The former Manchester United player continued: “If you have a player of this quality, who is great when he has the ball, plays for Real Madrid, and offers special things, then his work rate without the ball inspires all the other players.”
The English national team achieved the largest victory in its history over a team that occupies one of the top 50 positions in the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) rankings since 1992, after inflicting the largest defeat in its history on Croatia, ranked 14th in the world.
Under Guardiola's leadership, Manchester City achieved the historic treble (Champions League, English Premier League, and FA Cup), and became the only club in the history of England to win the league title 4 times in a row. It was also the first team to achieve the “local treble,” and the only team to win the title after scoring 100 points. But all of this was built on a false foundation! To borrow a phrase from the Premier League's statement - which condemned "systematic breaches of the rules that have continued for almost a decade" following the conclusions of an independent panel that found Manchester City guilty of more than 100 rule breaches between 2009 and 2018 - the whole thing was "fake". The egregious actions of club executives have destroyed the reputation of a club with a history dating back 146 years. Although Manchester City announced its appeal of the ruling and maintained its innocence, Guardiola - according to Mark Ogden on the ENBS website - cannot escape the damage resulting from a long and systematic program of financial deception, especially since a large part of it was done in his favor.
Abu Dhabi built a club and team worthy of Guardiola, but this building was built with money and illegal gains. It has now been proven that the advantages afforded to Guardiola were unfair. As Roy Keane, the former Manchester United captain, said this week: “They (Manchester City) won titles on the pitch because of the cheating they were committing.” Whether you call what happened financial mismanagement, manipulation, or deception, the foundations of Guardiola's empire at Manchester City rest on rule violations that occurred before and during his tenure as coach of the team. Therefore, his historic, record-breaking era with the club remains marred by these practices.
However, Guardiola's story with Manchester City has two sides. The former coach of Barcelona and Bayern Munich arrived at the Etihad Stadium in the summer of 2016, carrying 6 league titles in Catalonia and Bavaria, in addition to two Champions League titles with Barcelona, which established his position as the most prominent coach in the world at that time. In fact, Guardiola is considered a coaching genius, a man whose tactical prowess helped build what is arguably the greatest club team in history during his time with Barcelona. He reshaped the style of play, and his influence is being felt at all levels of football. For this reason, the club's management - supported by Abu Dhabi - made strenuous efforts to sign Guardiola in the first place. The style of football that Guardiola implemented at the Etihad Stadium has cemented his reputation as the world's greatest manager, perhaps the best of all time. It cannot be denied that he improved the performance of his players and consolidated his position as a technical manager whose name will always be present in discussions about the great tactical geniuses. But, what about the titles, championships, and continuous series of successes he achieved? It is true that Guardiola's tactical acumen was an inherent trait in him, but the process of building a very strong squad in Manchester City would not have been possible without the club violating the rules, which the club did repeatedly.
Guardiola's story with Manchester City did not begin the moment he arrived in July 2016. This step was merely the culmination of a long-term plan developed by Abu Dhabi to appoint him as coach of the team. The first building blocks for this project were laid with the appointment of Ferran Soriano as CEO of the club in August 2012, and Txiki Begiristain as Director of Football two months later. Both men worked closely with Guardiola at Barcelona - where Soriano served as vice-president and Begiristain as sporting director - so their signing by Manchester City was a reunion of the old team, with Guardiola being the final, impressive piece to complete the picture after four years.
Here lies the essential point; The independent commission - which examined the 115 accusations brought against the club by the English Premier League - revealed compelling evidence that the club artificially inflated sponsorship revenues by a whopping 830 million pounds ($1.08 billion) between 2009 and 2018. When analyzing the numbers season after season, it becomes clear that these numbers - or what can be described as “financial stimulants” - began to rise sharply and rapidly starting from the 2012-2013 season.
In Soriano's first season as the club's chief executive, officials - in clear contravention of Premier League financial rules - increased the club's commercial income by £105.75 million. In the 2013-2014 season, 111.5 million pounds were added; It was followed by £107.2m - on top of the actual figure of £16m - in the 2014-15 season. In the season before Guardiola's arrival, this additional sum not included in the official records rose to £120.17m; It is a financial boost that helped the club prepare for the arrival of the new coach by signing Kevin De Bruyne (for 55 million pounds from Wolfsburg) and Raheem Sterling (for 49 million pounds from Liverpool) during the twelve months before Guardiola took office. Guardiola informed Bayern Munich in December 2015 that he would leave at the end of that season. However, sources reported to ESPN that Sterling had been told that Guardiola wanted to join Manchester City, even though his actual transfer occurred a full year before Guardiola left Bayern Munich and moved to Manchester City.
Thus, Guardiola arrived at Manchester City in 2016 to find a team with royal qualities. It was like a Formula 1 team signing the best driver after building a car with a stronger engine, better tires, and stronger aerodynamic properties - all in clear violation of the rules - and then asking him to win after another. This is exactly what Guardiola did, constantly benefiting from illegal payments coming from Abu Dhabi, which rose to 129.59 million pounds sterling in Guardiola’s first season, then to 134.73 million pounds sterling in the 2017-2018 season.
Imagine giving the best manager in the world all that extra money to bolster his team; It is no wonder, then, that Manchester City has been so dominant under Guardiola. Guardiola later stated - and inaccurately - that “no one from the technical staff or the supporting staff, especially the players and the technical director” was present when the rules were violated between 2009 and 2018. The truth is that Guardiola and his crew were already there in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The 55-year-old Guardiola - who left Manchester City at the end of last season - also said in response to a question about the accusations against the club: “I trust them (the club owners). “I spoke to them and I trust their behavior and actions.”
Guardiola said in his first reaction via his account on the “X” platform: “I want every Manchester City fan to know that I am here, more than ever before. I support, as I always have and I will always support, my team, the owner, the Chairman, Ferran, the players, the technical staff, Enzo, and you are a unique group of our fans. Let me be clear... we will get through this together. “I love you all.” City CEO Ferran Soriano addressed the employees via a video clip on Tuesday in which he rejected the findings of the independent committee. The Spanish coach accompanied the post with pictures of him wearing a Manchester City shirt, celebrating with club president Khaldoon Al Mubarak, raising the Champions League cup, greeting the fans, and celebrating the English Premier League title in 2023.
Before Abu Dhabi acquired the club in 2008, Manchester City was an English version of Espanyol or 1860 Munich; A club with a long but unsuccessful history has been overshadowed by the dominance of much larger local rivals. but; Has Guardiola ever wondered how Manchester City suddenly turned into one of the strongest clubs in the world, and how it was able to achieve revenues greater than those of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Liverpool, and attract big stars such as Erling Haaland, De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero, in addition to Guardiola himself as a technical director!
If a mid-sized club, without a global fan base or a history of trophies, had achieved all this through hard work alone, it would be astonishing, perhaps even the greatest sporting story of all time. But we now know that was not the case at all. It was like a fairy tale, but a twisted story with an ominous ending, and Guardiola and his team were closely linked to it!
