Did we just witness the single greatest football team of all time?

Was the 2022-2023 Manchester City squad the best team of all time? To answer this question, we need to go back in time. It’s 2022 in the “Estadio Santiago Bernabéu-Madrid”. Manchester City is up 4-3 on aggregate against the tournament’s favorites, Real Madrid, in the Semi-finals, 2nd leg. Manchester City was having an immaculate season, and to top off their season, all they had to do was keep their lead against Real Madrid and advance to the Champions League final (The Super Bowl for soccer). City starts the game strong and goes up 1-0 against Madrid to solidify their lead, then this happened… Rodrygo’s 90th-minute goal, Rodrygo’s 91st-minute goal, and Benzema’s 95th-minute game-winner. Within five minutes of football, City have absolutely bottled it and are knocked out… The Saudi Arabian owners thought this was the year for City to finally win the Champions League, but they were short.

This sparked colossal controversy as City fans were in shambles, blaming the manager and other ridiculous claims. One statement that nearly the entire world agreed on was that City was missing something in their attack: A Striker. That man they were missing was Erling Braut Haaland. The season before Haaland joined City, he played for Dortmund, a team in the German Bundesliga, where he scored 41 goals in one season. To put that in perspective, In Messi’s best season, he scored 50. Haaland also scored nine goals in a single game that season. This made Man City sure of their decision to trigger the release clause on his contract for 65 million euros. Meaning Haaland was now a member of City. This was the spark that kicked off the historic 2022-2023 season with a bang.

That very next season, Haaland broke the record for most goals scored in a season with 52, surpassing Messi and Ronaldo! City went on to win four major European trophies, which topped Manchester United’s previous record of 3 in 1999. Man City had done the impossible, and the entire world was shocked; analysts and European pundits believed it was never going to happen again, yet Man City not only did it, they beat the record held by one of the most historic clubs of all time. City scored a whopping 151 goals in all competitions, averaging just shy of 2.5 per game. A tally of 94 of these came in the Premier League, 32 in the Champions League, 19 in the FA Cup, and five in the Carabao Cup. Manchester City broke numerous records, including 3 in a row Premier League titles.

Manchester City broke almost every record that year and did it in style. A massive eyesore in this historic season is the reaction from the rest of the world. Many football fans from other fan bases were mad about City completing this feat. They like to say “oil club,” trying to say that Man City would have never done this without the Saudi takeover by owner Sheikh Mansour. However, it may be true that Man City benefited from the money that bought them new players and attracted their manager, Pep Guardiola. This claim is ridiculous because, over the past 15 years, City’s net spending has been less than Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Spurs. With Manchester City being 359 million euros behind Manchester United, none of them could achieve the greatness City created.

Jack Geist is a Senior member of the Multimedia Journalism class.