2024 promises more of 2023: Ronaldo-Messi’s rivalry, Guardiola’s evolution, Saudi’s Europe assault

Some footballing inevitabilities of the New Year: The two ageless emperors of our times, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, would continue their journey into timelessness. Pep Guardiola would continue his maniacal obsession to evolve, to enrich the game with more than just trophies and medals, but embellish the game with something truly immortal; Manchester United would envisage new ways to flounder their glorious heritage; Saudi would keep shelling out incredible sums to lure the best of Europe.

Messi turns 37 in June. Cristiano Ronaldo becomes 39 at the stroke of February. Both have achieved so much that you wonder what more they could achieve in football, or what more they need to achieve in the game. The World Cup dream fuels Ronaldo. It’s the only vacuum in his trophy-chest. He would be 41 by then. But nothing would stop them—he is scoring goals as frequently as he had in Europe. No one scored as many goals as Ronaldo in 2023 (54 goals in 59 appearances for Al Nassr and Portugal). No mean feat in the shriveling heat of Saudi Arabia, the standards steadily improving with the influx from Europe. No one netted more goals (10) in the Euro 2024 qualifiers than Ronaldo either. Maybe, he will play as long as Messi does. The sport has not seen a rivalry as long-lasting as theirs, two individuals turning a team-game into a perennial two-man race for the throne of the greatest footballer ever. It could be that football does not want them to leave them, more than them wanting to leave them.

What’s inspiring Messi, then? An MLS league title? The revenue from it? A World Cup and COPA defence? Or just the fear of loneliness without the ball at his feet, without the deafening applause of the arena, without the un-swaying attention of the masses? Perhaps, it is fear that’s keeping them tugged to the turf. The fear of losing the love of their lives. For the game has defined their existence, just as they have defined the game. Football cannot imagine an era without them; and they cannot visualise a time without the game. Every time they have the ball at their feet, it’s the same love of the game that flickers in their eyes as when they first felt the ball. They continue to be the boy from Madeira and the lad from Rosario.

Cristiano Ronaldo gestures playing for a combined XI of Saudi Arabian teams Al Nassr and Al Hilal is flanked by PSG’s Lionel Messi during a friendly soccer match, at the King Saud University Stadium, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The world around them would change; football would change too. But they remain two imperishable constants of the game. Football and football watchers would not complain, for they have become an indispensable part of their footballing consciousness.

The man who continues to change, continues to add layers to his footballing vision, and continues to debunk his own theories, is Messi’s Barcelona mentor, Guardiola. The man who conceived the idea of the False 9, making Messi its greatest exponent, the man whose team practised the most intricate of football-art forms, the tika taka, which he would rubbish as “ugly”, the man who has built a football empire in Manchester, is now embracing something he has never done in his life. In the past, he has detested dribblers, preferring those with passing range and positional play rather than those prone to dribbles and such-like trickery. This season he has torn that manual apart. All of his new signings in the transfer window—Jeremy Doku, Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes and Josko Gvardiol are all good dribblers who could sneak in through a maze of legs and tip-toe through narrow spaces. All of them have been doing exactly that this season, carrying the ball upfield at a rapid pace rather than progressing forward with intricate passing patterns. It’s perhaps the most direct style of play he has ever professed.

It’s a direct response to teams employing the same Guardiola press-and-pass style to suffocate them. At a time when man-marking has become increasingly tight, having dribbling skills would help slithering past the opponents. All of these aforementioned names have high ball progressive carry percentages this season, and are much better when taking players one-on-one than classical Guardiola players. Whether he would win a fourth straight league title or not, he has established a beautiful football empire.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola speaks during a press conference ahead of his team’s UEFA Champions League match. (File)

As with all empires, one is built on the ruins of another. If Manchester City are soaring, their neighbours Manchester United are plummeting. The much-maligned Glazers have sold 25 percent of their stakes to billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, whose trusted men would now oversee sporting operations. Promising as this might sound, the rot at the club is so deep that it might take United several years to challenge City to wrestle for the title. Success would not be instant, and the supporters could be dragged through an unstable wave of ups and down. That should not be an unfamiliar suffering, as they have already tasted this dish several times.

Some half-inevitabilities: England’s wait for winning the continental tournament would continue. They were runners-up last edition, they have a stronger team this time, but they would still devise ways to implode.

City would, as they have in the past few years, stave off stern challenges from Liverpool and Arsenal to claim a fourth league title. Both Reds and Gunners have shown more defiance and quality this season, but are they not one City purple patch away from falling by the side?

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It would not be different in Germany either. Former Bayern-man Xabi Alonso has parachuted Bayer Leverkusen to the top, but how many times have they snuffed fellow contenders at the finish line. In Spain, Girona threatens to topple the applecart. But for how long could they sustain their dream run?

Some things in football, it seems, are just meant to be. It’s inevitable.

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