Make theirs a treble.
Manchester City fans are still glorying in the scenes witnessed following their Champions League final victory over Inter Milan on Saturday night, and the success has been made even more special because it matches rivals Manchester United's finest hour.
Well, on paper anyway.
City's treble victory of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League is the same achievement managed by Sir Alex Ferguson's United vintage of 1999, but with everything we know about what is going on around City, can the wins be compared?
We asked our Mirror Football team the fairly open-ended question: Man Utd 1999 or Man City 2023?
John Cross
As achievements go, Manchester City’s Treble has to be on a par with Sir Alex Ferguson’s three trophies in 1999.
It is so difficult to win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League that the credit must be shared in equal measure with Manchester United.
But I do feel United had a tougher task and maybe therefore makes it more special. And yet, just because City are so dominant and better than everyone else that shouldn’t be held against them but rather earn them praise in their own right.
United were pushed harder in the title race by Arsenal that year, it was harder to win and everyone knows the story of the European Cup final and beating Bayern Munich.
In contrast, City won the title with relative ease in the end. I never felt they’d do anything other than beat Inter Milan.
So why don’t we praise them more? Shouldn’t you get praise for being so good that it feels easier? Of course you should.
But that’s where the doubts and question marks come in. While the 115 charges against them are being investigated, there remains an asterisk. And you can’t get away from that.
The sooner it gets cleared up the better for everyone concerned. City insist they’ll be cleared. But then, we will judge the achievements differently.
Mike Walters
Forget, for now, the asterisk which comes with City's triumph. The Premier League's 115 charges of alleged financial jiggery-pokery will be sorted out in due course - once the lawyers have finished kicking all those cans down the street.
Whose Treble was better? Who cares? The achievements are parallel.
But for pure sporting drama, there is only one winner.
I don't remember City taking the chequered flag by a single point on the last day of term after being chased all the way to the line by Arsenal.
I don't remember City needing a penalty save, and a sensational extra-time winner after a 50-yard slalom, in their FA Cup semi-final.
I don't remember City trailing 1-0, with the clock running down like the mouse in Hickory Dickory Dock, and pulling two rabbits from the hat at the death in Istanbul.
There was an inevitable air about the Treble of 2023 - we saw it coming from the moment City won 3-1 at Arsenal in February.
Congratulations to Pep Guardiola and his players - the best team in English football by a country mile.
But apart from The Godfather, sequels are rarely as good as the original.
Mark Jones
When Manchester United won the treble in 1999 it felt as though some sort of Herculean task had been completed - man landing on the moon, the four-minute mile, David May with the Champions League trophy. As a 13-year-old Liverpool supporter, I hated it.
But while we all get older and more cynical over time, barely anyone could have felt similar feelings on Saturday.
City fans in Istanbul and beyond have absolutely every right to glory in their team's victory, the brilliant football they play and the wonderful memories they've given fans in recent years. Absolutely no-one should take that away from them. UEFA clearly hold fans in enough contempt as it is, so we don't need to turn on each other even more.
But to speak of the context of this victory means you simply have to speak of the 115 charges. There is no getting away from them, and they make the success feel cold.
The better team? Man City 2023 would absolutely wipe the floor with Man Utd 1999, with the advances in fitness and the genius and evolution of Pep Guardiola's tactics making it a no contest for me.
The more memorable achievement? Well, that's Fergie's time.
Kieran King
For me, recency bias aside, I would still go for Manchester City's 2023 side.
Regardless of the money they have spent since the takeover in 2008, Pep Guardiola has done wonders with that team and made them into a well-oiled machine that is and will be difficult to stop. In fact, City have the NINTH highest net spend in the last five years.
That is lower than the remainder of the traditional 'big-six', with Aston Villa, Wolves, West Ham and Newcastle recording higher too. Given they signed Jack Grealish for £100m, and Erling Haaland for £52m in that time, it is an impressive statistic for City to have.
Yes, many players were signed before that time, but Haaland, especially, has taken them to a new level. He, for me, is the best striker the Premier League has ever had, despite the small time frame he has had in the division. Despite Manchester United's achievements in 1999, Sir Alex Ferguson would have dreamt of having a player of Haaland's quality at his disposal and a knack of finding the net with ease.
David McDonnell
There will always be conjecture over which Treble is better, with fans of either side lauding theirs as the best, but both are formidable achievements in their own right.
United notched 79 points in 1999, losing three games, while City managed 89, but lost five. Both were unbeaten on their way to Champions League glory and, of course, in the FA Cup.
The fact only two sides in English football history have done the Treble - and that it has taken nearly a quarter of a century to repeat it - shows the magnitude of the accomplishment and why it is unlikely to repeated any time soon, despite City’s domestic dominance and graduation to Champions League winners.
Sam Meade
No matter how good Guardiola's City were, everyone had been saying in the lead up to Saturday - "You haven't done it yet".
Well that's now been put to bed and the debate can begin with those on the blue half of Manchester coming out on top for me. There will always be a nostalgia and a romance to United's treble and it was certainly better theatre than City's.
Entertainment and quality are different things however. If you want to make a film, go for the 1999 side. If you want the better team, it is City's 2023 outfit.
For starters they gained 10 more points than United. For anyone who suggests they the Red Devils were pushed - they drew four of their final eight games. No side vying for a title race should be afforded eight dropped points in the run in, but they were able to do so. City meanwhile, were relentless, putting together 14 wins on the bounce.
Their FA Cup wins are relatively comparable. In the Champions League final many Germans will question how Bayern didn't win that game, such was their dominance. City were made to work, but were more or less good value for their victory.
I think as a footballing outfit nothing in England can probably ever compared to the dynasty Guardiola is creating, and I think they'd sweep all before them.
Simon Bird
At the Nou Camp in May 1999, the resilience and never-beaten aura of Fergie’s Treble winners shone through. The sheer desperation to win the big one shone through in those final dramatic injury time minutes.
In Istanbul on Saturday, as Pep Guardiola’s men ground their way through Italian stifling and a lack of fluency early on, similar qualities were on display. United of old, City of the present, two great teams.
I was in Barcelona for Sir Alex’s “football, bloody hell,” moment, as a Manchester news reporter. A few minutes after the final whistle, I climbed a barrier to speak to the families of Man U’s heroes. Teddy Sheringham’s dad Paul (Verdict: should have had Teddy on from the start!), and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s wife Silje.
In a one off game, with 2023 levels of fitness, athleticism and sports science, I’d back Man U to overcome City’s current heroes. Stam, Irwin, Gary Neville at the back. Beckham and Butt in the middle, Giggs, Yorke and Cole creating, with Ole and Teddy off the bench.
City would see United off over a whole season, but like Pep says, the Champions League is like a toss of a coin. So tight.
James Nursey
Manchester City’s treble with the Champions League to top it off was brilliant and well deserved.
The football Pep Guardiola’s stylish side play is clearly superior to all their rivals.
And the final victory over Inter Milan, to secure the club’s Holy Grail, was extra admirable given Kevin De Bruyne had earlier limped off.
But there will be an asterisk next to the achievement for now while the charges of financial doping hang over them.
There is no such stigma associated with Manchester United’s treble from 1999 with a British manager and several homegrown talents.
That was a special era and team at Old Trafford under Sir Alex Ferguson.
And while United did enjoy spending power back then, it was nothing like the bottomless pit City can call upon with Middle Eastern cash.
So I view United’s treble as more memorable and better.
But I suspect if the two teams ever meet in the heavens one day, Roy Keane will get sent off and City will out pass them.
Which treble was the better achievement? Man Utd 1999 or Man City 2023? Have your say in the comments section
Nathan Ridley
I see this in two different ways. Which was the better achievement? United's. Who's got the better team? City.
What Sir Alex Ferguson's side pulled off in 1999 will always be remembered with far more romanticism than City's feat just for the sheer drama alone - never mind not having 115 Premier League charges looming over them. The final-day title win, that semi-final against Arsenal and those three added minutes in Barcelona - it was footballing entertainment at its finest.
Their treble wasn't supposed to happen, whereas it almost feels like City's was merely inevitable during the Pep Guardiola era, a testament to how well they've established themselves as a footballing juggernaut. Saturday felt like the culmination of 15 years of precise groundwork laid on their quest for world domination.
That's where the brilliance of City's team and class of coaching comes in.
Yes, United could bring Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham off the bench in a show of their squad depth, and had Ferguson's esteemed man-management guiding them, but Guardiola's group of players as a unit are a cut above.
They may possess all the mod cons 2023 has to offer behind the scenes and could well fall to Ferguson's famous team in a one-off game, but the power which these City players have demonstrated throughout the campaign is frightening.
And who'd bet against them doing it again next year?
