Last season, Manchester City did the unthinkable. They romped to an historic treble, winning the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League – in fine style, too.
Some audiences are beginning to name the City squad last season as one of the greatest club sides of all time – today, we would like to explore this claim.
Of course, this is an incredibly weighty title to bear. As such, we will compare them to two other treble-winning teams – the Barcelona team from 2008/09 (also managed by Pep Guardiola) and the legendary Manchester United outfit of 1998/99.
We feel that these two teams are the most comparable to City last season – especially Manchester United, who won the treble in the same division as the Sky Blues.
How do Manchester City fare when compared to the 2008/09 Barcelona team?
Arguably the best club team of all time, Barcelona were a force of nature in 2008/09. Their squad was full of legendary names, such as Carles Puyol, Andres Iniesta, Thierry Henry, Yaya Toure and Lionel Messi.
They dominated La Liga that season, finishing nine points above the team in second (Real Madrid). They lost a bit of steam towards the end of the campaign – but the league title had already been won by then.
Perhaps their finest moment came in the Champions League, when they crushed Bayern Munich by a score of 4-0 in the first leg – it was a testament to how far ahead they were of the rest of teams in the world that season.
Player for player, and in practice, we believe that this Barcelona team is superior to City’s team last season. However, given the Sky Blues’ dominance in the Champions League, the disparity between the two is not as wide as you may think.
How does the team match up against the Manchester United 1998/99 squad?
This may upset some audiences, but we believe that City were better last season than Manchester United were in 1998/99 – hear us out.
Manchester United may have won the treble in 1999, but they were not as dominant as City were in 2022/23. They only won both the Premier League and the Champions League by a whisker – the title was won by a margin of just a single point, while the Champions League was captured by a dramatic last-minute turnaround.
While Manchester City spent most of the previous season behind Arsenal in the league table, after 38 games were played, they still finished above the Gunners by a five-point gap.
Moreover, their Champions League run was simply phenomenal. They swept aside even the sternest of competitors with ease, including Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig and reigning champions Real Madrid. Over the course of their entire campaign in the Champions League, they conceded just five goals.