As the late, great Johan Cruyff once said, “Football is simple. But nothing is more difficult than playing simple football.”
In no match has this idea been better exemplified than Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinal between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
Here were two giants of modern club football going toe to toe with the mouthwatering prospect of a place in the semifinals at stake. Fueled by millions of dollars of investment, the squads sent out were the remuneration of yearly fine-tuning and financial one-upmanship.
Qatar Sports Investments took over PSG in October of 2011 and began the process of building one of the best teams in Europe by injecting over $433 million into the squad.
Abu Dhabi United took over Manchester City in September of 2008. With an immediate goal of dominating English football set to be followed by European supremacy, the City Football Group has spent over $1 billion on City to this day.
The ‘El Cashico’ has been pitted as the riches of Qatar against the riches of Abu Dhabi, a flexing of domineering financial clout that’s ensured both clubs the necessary talent and depth to win this competition.
Those riches have certainly gone a long way toward fueling their furthest ever progression in the UEFA Champions League, now the quarterfinal stage.
PSG is led by the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Angel Di Maria, Edinson Cavani and David Luiz. Man City have a similarly robust squad containing the likes of Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva, Raheem Sterling and Eliaquim Mangala.
Yet, for all their commercial success, for all the frightening array of talent that forlornly stares at you from full page Nike advertisements guaranteeing the seemingly indomitable nature of their star players, PSG and Man City continue to display an ineptitude in European competition that makes it all irrelevant.
Here was the $56.4 million signing from Chelsea, David Luiz, first setting a Champions League record by picking up a yellow card in the game’s first TWELVE SECONDS and then providing this piece of farcical defending to allow De Bruyne to score the game’s opening goal.
Not to be outdone, here was the $17 million City signing Fernando freezing like a deer in headlights at the worst possible moment, allowing PSG to even the score.
Serge Aurier and Thiago Silva cost PSG a combined $62 million, here they combined to fail to deal with a cross, allowing Fernandinho to equalize for Man City on 73 minutes.
Even the normally dependable Ibrahimovic, who transferred from AC Milan to PSG for $24 million in 2012, was guilty of missing 3 clear chances, including a penalty.
This game was equal parts brilliance and slapstick farce. It was almost as if the sport wished to make a satire of the amount of money being spent on a silly ball game. It was a comic opera of the piecemeal approach to assembling a squad of superstars, all appearing slightly unhinged and misguided.
While one of the two clubs will be fortunate to find themselves in the semifinals, it’s difficult to envision the monetary might of either standing up to the simple brilliance of Barcelona or Bayern Munich. Then again, we’ve seen sillier things happen.
