Old time Man City: Football betting company 1xBet reveals 5 superstars who played for the world’s strongest club before the Abu Dhabi United Group

Photo caption: City before their victorious 1956 FA Cup final. Goalkeeper Bert Trautmann’s neck is okay here, but he’ll finish game with fracture.

Even 15 years ago, no one could imagine that the modest neighbour of the great Manchester United would not only become a formidable force in England but also turn into the planet’s strongest club. Abu Dhabi United Group acquired the Citizens in August 2008. Football stars came to the club with great opportunities, and the first big success came in the 2011/2012 season. Sergio Agüero’s goal against QPR in the 94th minute of the last round of the Premier League became one of the most famous in recent football history and finally changed the status of Manchester City – a rich club became a real grand and each subsequent season confirmed its position. Since Pep Guardiola arrived in early 2016, City has won 5 Premier League titles in 7 seasons, played regularly in the Champions League playoffs, and finally won the main European Cup this year. However, one should not think that the club had no history before 2008: this team had enough bright personalities, and today football betting company 1xbet will remind you of the players who will forever remain the pride of the Manchester blue part.

Billy Meredith

Photo caption: Billy Meredith still terrified opponent’s defenders after returning to City. Great Meredith is already 49 years old in 1924 cup match against Brighton.

The first superstar performed in Manchester in the late 19th century and early 20th century. According to legend, when scouts from the City came for 20-year-old Billy, who worked at the mine, Meredith’s colleagues almost beat the guests but received free beer and calmed down. Billy agreed to the transfer, but he combined football with work underground for another year. How do you like that, Erling Haaland?

Former defender Meredith became a star-playing winger. The experience of playing defence helped him to deceive defenders and score a lot. In 11 years at City, he scored 150 goals, including the only one in the FA Cup final in 1904. Two years later, Billy was accused of trying to bribe an opponent, the club did not support him, and he responded by saying that City illegally paid extra to players. As a result, the head coach of the team, Tom Maley, received a life ban, 17 team players were suspended from football until January 1907, and the club’s management was forced to put them up for sale. The auction occurred at the Queens Hotel in Manchester, and United became its primary beneficiary – the head coach of City’s eternal rival bought Billy Meredith for 500 pounds. And although the Reds bosses had to wait more than 7 months for the end of the suspension period for their new star, the investment paid off – Billy helped United become champions twice and win the FA Cup.

Meredith played for the Reds for 15 years, but the first love is not forgotten, and the player spent the last three years with The Blues. Meredith’s football longevity was aided by regular training and abstaining from alcohol, a rarity in those days. But the legend of Manchester both parts loved to chew tobacco, and at the beginning of his career, he did it right during matches. Grown-up Billy changed tobacco to a toothpick, which became part of his image: rare cartoons dedicated to Man City were without the forward’s image with a toothpick in his mouth.

Eric Brook

Photo caption: Eric Brook is City’s all-time leading scorer before Sergio Agüero. Brook’s powerful shots helped City become champion for first time in history.

A wandering forward who, during the match, can suddenly appear on any part of the pitch and make a result. Decades before Johan Cruyff, Eric Brook played like that. By the way, the Flying Dutchman never played a goalkeeper, but Brook wore gloves in at least 3 City matches! This is what a “football all-rounder” was by English soccer standards almost a century ago.

Brook’s partner Frank Swift said that the forward reminded him of dynamite – he was so firmly aimed at the opponents’ goal. In 1934, Brook led the team to their first FA Cup victory in 30 years, and in 1937, his 20 goals helped Manchester win their first league title. His scoring record of 177 goals was only beaten in 2017 by the above-mentioned Sergio Agüero, who led the Citizens to their first Premier League victory.

Bert Trautmann

Photo caption: Goalkeeper Bert Trautmann was paratrooper before joining City. He flew at Citizens’ goal too.

The war, coinciding with the end of Eric Brook’s career, gave City another club legend. The German Bert Trautmann was a paratrooper, visited the Soviet camp, and escaped from there, but a few years later, ended up in another camp – an English one. There he played football as a goalkeeper along with other prisoners and attracted the St. Helens team’s attention, from where he was called to the City in 1949.

Fans protested against “Fritz” in the team – about 20,000 people came out to protest. But Bert’s game – a fearless, athletic goalkeeper who played well with his feet over time won the fans’ hearts.

Trautmann’s story became legendary after the 1956 FA Cup Final. City was in the lead, but 15 minutes before the end, Bert suffered a neck injury but refused to leave the field and finished the match – after all, substitutions were not allowed at that time. After the game, an x-ray showed that Trautmann played out with a broken cervical vertebra. Shocked by his courage and game, English journalists recognized the German as the player of the year. Bert played 545 matches for the club and later got into the Hall of Fame of both English and German football.

Colin Bell

Photo caption: Colin Bell, late 1960s and early 1970s team legend. With such hairstyle, he could well play in The Beatles.

Bell was a key player in City’s last pre-modern champion team. 1968 turned out to be an amazing year for all Mancunians without exception. The neighbours from United won the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, and the City fans only laughed: “Are you the best on the continent? Yes, you are not the best even in England, not to mention Manchester!”

Bell was a box-to-box midfielder who played both defensively and offensively. Imagine Steve Gerrard, and you get an idea of how Colin played. He scored 152 goals between 1965 and 1979, helping City win a league title, FA Cup, two League Cups and two Charity Shields.

Colin was too young to play in the victorious home 1966 World Cup, but he was in the first team by the next tournament. Bell played 48 matches for the national team, more than any other City player before. The record was broken only by Joe Hart, but unlike him, Bell managed to prove himself in Europe. With him, the Citizens won their first European trophy – the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1970.

Georgi Kinkladze

Photo caption: Georgi Kinkladze played for City in Premier League for only 1 season. But at that time, even David Beckham could not keep up with him.

The documentary about this football master is called The Magician of Maine Road. Kinkladze was even compared to Maradona, and this was only partly a joke. Georgi moved to Manchester City in 1995 and began to conquer Albion with his spectacular southern technique.

That team did not fight for titles, but its matches gathered full stadiums, not only in Manchester. Kinkladze quickly became one of the brightest players in English football, his dribbling was reminiscent of the modern game of Bernardo Silva, and he could pass no worse than Kevin de Bruyne. The Georgian midfielder spent only 3 seasons in City, of which only 1 in the Premier League, but he is remembered by all the real fans of the Citizens.

Kinkladze was the kind of player who gave a spectacle and hope for the best, even in the most challenging times for the club. For the sake of such players, fans go to stadiums in all eras, regardless of the club’s results and titles. It’s no surprise that Georgi was named Player of the Year for two consecutive seasons. Today he is an important page in the Manchester superclub history.

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The global betting company 1xBet talks about the Manchester club’s success, which finally took the main European trophy and made a historic treble.

City new history

June 10 is when one part of Manchester rejoiced, and the other felt blue. In the Champions League final, Manchester City beat Inter and repeated the legendary team of Alex Ferguson’s achievement of 1999.

Guardiola’s team became the second in England after the Red Devils, which managed to win the treble. Before that, they took gold in the Premier League and the FA Cup. This is the second treble for Pep – in 2009, he won three trophies with Barcelona. By the way, Guardiola is the only one who achieved such a result with two different clubs.

Money that had to wait

Whatever they say about Guardiola’s genius, this success would never have happened without the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) money, which bought the club in 2008 from former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. And although the head of ADUG, Sheikh Mansour, said outright that he wanted to turn City into one of Europe’s leading clubs, he had to make sure from his own experience that even big money needs time – the team managed to break into the Champions League only at the end of the 2010/2011 season. These were the times when Citizens fans were often asked on the continent what the three stars on the emblem of their favorite team meant – by that time, it had won the top league only twice (as a rule, in European club football, a star appears on the club emblem after 10 victories in the national championship). The Blues fans smiled sadly and said it was about three billion for transfers.

Luckily for the new owners, Man City won their first title of the 21st century already in the 2011/2012 season. Even then, it was obvious the club was financially solid, and its success in Europe is only a matter of time, proper management and patience. But years passed, and the team was far from the status of the best. Everything changed when one of the best coaches of our era came to Manchester.

Creator

Josep Maria Guardiola i Sala, or simply Pep, is the main success factor of this City. The Spanish GOAT (greatest of all time) built a great team and cemented its status in history. Pep turned City into a transformer with impressive game discipline (in his team, even Jack Grealish obediently does everything required), non-trivial interaction, well-established counter-pressing and picked up players of the highest level. This is not the Barcelona of 2009 – there is a different system, more complicated than his previous creation. And this system works like clockwork.

Shadow director

If you mix Guardiola’s system, all his principles, attitudes and requirements in a cauldron, and then brew one player from this potion, Bernardo Silva will appear in front of you. He is Guardiola’s Manchester City football.

Bernardo knows everything. The Portuguese influences the game at all its stages. He does a lot of rough work and runs an excellent 13 km per match. Bernardo absorbs any idea from Pep and is an extension of the coach on the field. Think about it: during his career at City, this player changed 26 roles in ten schemes. Played everywhere except the center of defense. And in every position, he did what Guardiola needed. Only De Bruyne, with his assisting superpower, has played more games under Pep.

Norwegian robot

When the team celebrated the title, Pep traditionally lit a cigar. Guardiola has been doing this for a long time, and Erling Haaland decided to repeat this trick after the coach. Cyborg, who drinks only specially filtered water, relaxed a little. He can – after all, he also became one of the wings that helped the team take off.

Haaland’s signing was the final cog in the system. His appearance gave Pep a solution to the implementation problems – since the days of Sergio Aguero in Man City, there has not been such an effective center forward. Viking had the best season of his career, breaking dozens of records. He became the top scorer in the current Champions League, having shot 12 balls into the opponents’ goal and becoming a real attack leader. In 31 official matches, when the forward scored, City have 27 wins and 4 draws. Without Haaland’s goals – 15 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses. City did not win in almost half of the cases without his effective actions.

Mind games

The last but not least success factor is the team’s microclimate. Remember the events of early 2023: Man City lost to Southampton and was relegated from the League Cup, the club was accused of financial fraud, and Arsenal firmly settled at the top of the Premier League standings. However, the players, together with the coach, were able to get out of the psychological hole and achieve a historic result.

When the sheikhs bought the club in 2008, they said they would be patient. 15 years have passed, and patience has been rewarded. All slots on the trophy shelf are filled.

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