Man City confirmed as world's best club in 2023 after winning fifth trophy
Pep Guardiola is happy to call Manchester City the best in the world this year, but an all-time great team? That debate must wait for years if not decades.
«Right now, I don't know,» Guardiola said after City cruised to its first Club World Cup title by easily beating Fluminense 4-0 on Friday, lifting a fifth domestic and international trophy in 2023.
Guardiola is the first coach to win the FIFA club title with three different teams and compared City's status to the great Barcelona side he led to be champion of Spain, Europe and the world in 2011.
«If people talk about the team 25 or 30 years later it means you're a really good team,» he said. «Today is nice.
We have been the best team in the world.»
Judgment on this Man City era also must wait for the outcome of an English Premier League investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing at the club for almost a decade through 2018.
A hearing is expected late next year to examine 115 charges leveled against the club for conduct during the first nine full seasons after being bought by the royal family of Abu Dhabi.
Verdicts are not expected until 2025, when City will play in the first revamped Club World Cup with 32 teams.
Guardiola's team has been unquestionably the best in Europe this year and was simply too good for overmatched Fluminense, which could ill afford unlucky bounces of the ball that left the first-time champion of South America in a two-goal hole within 27 minutes.
«We prepared the whole year for (Copa) Libertadores but not the Club World Cup,» Fluminense coach Fernando Diniz said of his team being drained by winning its continental title seven weeks ago.
City led after just 40 seconds to make it a match mostly free of tension.
