"My greatest challenge is not what's happening at the moment. My greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their f*****g perch. And you can print that."
Sir Alex Ferguson ’s famous declaration during his Manchester United heyday. When taking over at Old Trafford in 1986, the Red Devils had seven league titles to the Reds’ 16. Come the inaugural Premier League season in 1992/93, Liverpool had extended that total to 18 while United had gone 26 years without winning the league.
But by ending the drought that year, the fiery Scot was kick-starting a period of dominance at Old Trafford which would see United crowned champions of England 13 times over the next 21 seasons and only once go more than one year without winning the league prior to Ferguson’s retirement in 2013.
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Overtaking Liverpool’s total number of league wins in 2011 with their 19th title, Ferguson had succeeded in knocking the Reds off their perch. But he wanted more. Having won the European Cup in 1999 and 2008, taking United’s overall total to three, he wanted to become England’s most successful side in Europe too.
Final losses to Barcelona in 2009 and 2011 would ultimately see him concede defeat in such a pursuit, with Ferguson settling for winning a 20th league title before retiring from management at the age of 71. But in the nine years that have followed, United’s place atop that perch has looked increasingly shaky with Liverpool clinching their sixth European Cup in 2019 and 19th league title in 2020.
Now, chasing an unprecedented quadruple, they could cancel out Ferguson’s 27-year work at Old Trafford in the Premier League should they topple Man City before the end of the season, and become the joint-second most successful side in European football altogether with a seventh Champions League win after setting up a final clash with Real Madrid.
Yet it’s not just United and Ferguson Liverpool will be frustrating should they reclaim their perch. Their ongoing success will have Pep Guardiola pulling his hair out, so to speak, at the Etihad too.
When the Spaniard took over at Man City in 2016, Sheikh Mansour and the Abu Dhabi United Group had already seen their billions take the club into the Champions League and deliver domestic glory with two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and two League Cup wins. Now they wanted to conquer Europe and Guardiola, having led Barcelona to two European Cups, was the man tasked with delivering such success.
Six years on and the closest City have come to being crowned champions of Europe is one final defeat to Chelsea in 2021. Meanwhile, their semi-final loss to Real Madrid on Wednesday night is only the second time they have reached the last four of the tournament with Guardiola at the helm.
As Man City continue to flounder in Europe, the fact that Jurgen Klopp has led Liverpool to a third Champions League final in five years will only rub salt in the wounds.
Out of contract next summer, Guardiola is in no position to knock either United or Liverpool off their perches. Even if he signs a new deal, his three Premier League titles with City only takes their overall total to seven.
And while they are currently a point ahead of the Reds in the Premier League title-race with four games left to play, that lack of European glory leaves them still lacking true football heavyweight status.
Try as they might, City remain in Liverpool’s shadow. After all, the Reds have indeed conquered all of Europe and, as the Kop regularly remind us, are never going to stop.
With Klopp reclaiming the club’s perch, Guardiola, now without a Champions League win since 2011, is left searching for answers having failed on the continental stage with City once again. And with the German recently extending his Anfield reign until 2026, the Spaniard, like Ferguson before him, might be forced to concede defeat when weighing up his future beyond the end of his contract in 2023.
