Manchester United vs Manchester City: Forget the past, Jose Mourinho vs Pep Guardiola will climax in derby duel
Mourinho cannot kick the opposition out of the game, while Guardiola does not have Lionel Messi to call on. The legacies of two great managers of this era will be decided in Manchester
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Forget what has gone before. Lionel Messi cannot win Saturday’s Manchester derby for Pep Guardiola, just as Jose Mourinho cannot instruct Pepe and Sergio Ramos to light fires all over the pitch for Manchester United.
Two managers with a shared history and an enmity forged in Spain, but the reality of Mourinho vs Guardiola is that their rivalry will be defined by what happens in the next three years within the confines of the M60, rather than their battle for supremacy in La Liga.
In the words of the Mancunian cultural icon, Ian Brown, ‘It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,’ and for football’s two most celebrated and sought-after coaches, Manchester is very much where they are both ‘at’ right now and it is a wholly different landscape from that which they fought over in Spain with Real Madrid and Barcelona.
There is a temptation to view this rivalry through the prism of their previous encounters in La Liga, when Mourinho won just three of his 16 encounters with Guardiola’s Barcelona during his three-year reign in charge of Real.
History shapes the future and Guardiola’s winning ratio will affect Mourinho just as Mourinho’s psychological warfare will continue to gnaw away at Guardiola, but the past is another country.
United vs City is not Real vs Barca, and that is not to relegate Manchester’s football rivalry to second-billing behind El Clasico.
Had the two managers been taking charge of Celtic vs Rangers on Saturday, in the first Old Firm battle for league points since 2012, Mourinho and Guardiola would be involved in perhaps the closest comparison to the Real-Barcelona rivalry in world football – two clubs accustomed to a duopoly, with outside rivals for success nothing more than fleeting irritations who disappear as quickly as they emerge.
With United and Manchester City, however, both men must overcome the challenge of outsiders, such as Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, as much as they must overcome each other.
And this is why the Manchester derby, and the two clubs’ battle for supremacy, provides the perfect theatre in which to play out, and decide, the intense rivalry between Mourinho and Guardiola.
Guardiola cannot rely on the institutional power of Barcelona or Bayern Munich with City. He cannot turn to Messi when in need of a moment of genius, or expect to sweep aside all domestic rivals as he did for three years with Bayern.
Mourinho, whose knowledge of the Premier League gives him an early advantage over Guardiola, also faces new challenges at Old Trafford, such as winning with a style that reflects United’s history and tradition, but also restoring the sheen to a personal reputation that has been damaged and dulled by his swift and acrimonious fall from grace at Chelsea.
Guardiola must prove he can succeed without a rich inheritance at City and build a team to compare with those he walked into in Catalonia and Bavaria, but Mourinho must show he can still succeed and remind the world why he described himself as the Special One.
And they are on a level playing field in Manchester. Neither has a head start on the other.
Goal difference separated the two clubs when the curtain fell on the reigns of Manuel Pellegrini and Louis van Gaal at the end of last season, so this is football’s version of Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg – both with super-powered vehicles and egos fuelled by a professional dislike of each other.
Mourinho has dragged United out of their post-Sir Alex Ferguson slumber with an injection of charisma, certainty and the recruitment of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, while Guardiola has already imposed his personality on City by overhauling a playing squad with a £170m spending spree at the same time as re-writing the play-book at the Etihad Stadium.
Inverted full-backs, attacking centre-halves, the rehabilitation of Raheem Sterling and the cold, ruthless discarding of Joe Hart – make no mistake, this is already Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.
And at Old Trafford, while proving more subtle in his tweaking of the United machine, there have also been noticeable changes under Mourinho.
United have become a much more physically-imposing team – Ibrahimovic, Pogba, Marouane Fellaini and Eric Bailly threaten to dwarf their opponents on derby day – while the volume has also been turned up on the pitch.
Watch carefully when a decision goes against United and how much more quickly the likes of Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata and Daley Blind will question the decisions of the officials.
Under Van Gaal, United were often too timid on the pitch, but the fighting spirit of Mourinho’s best teams is already beginning to emerge at Old Trafford – a positive which risks becoming a negative if arguing the toss develops into referee-baiting.
But the two clubs are perfect for their respective managers, even if both have flirted with the other in the past. Not that Mourinho was ever likely to end up at City once Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain, having rejected him in favour of Guardiola at Barcelona, pitched up at City four years ago with hiring Guardiola as high on the list of priorities as delivering the Champions League trophy to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan.
Both have lofty ambitions of global dominance, but you cannot be the biggest or the best if you cannot run your own neighbourhood
Guardiola for United and Mourinho for City would offer less to the two men than their current roles, however. Guardiola needs to prove he can build a team, and even a club, having succeeded with football royalty at Barca and Bayern. City can be Guardiola’s blank canvas, potentially enabling him to create at the Etihad Stadium what Johan Cruyff built at Barcelona.
And Mourinho, a man whose stellar CV includes the majesty of Real and Inter Milan, can now get to work on the challenge of restoring United to the summit of the game and giving the club justification to boast that they can punch their weight on the pitch just as powerfully as off it.
For too long, United have declared themselves to be the biggest club in the world while Bayern, Real and Barca have simply got on with the business of winning.
Both clubs and both managers have lofty ambitions of domestic and global dominance, but you cannot be the biggest or the best if you cannot run your own neighbourhood.
So for Mourinho and Guardiola, their rivalry is now all about what happens on their own doorstep.
They might well be new neighbours on Coronation Street, arguing over the cobbles about the noise next door.
Welcome to Manchester, Jose and Pep.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments