Chelsea vs Man City: League Cup final is first stop on the road to greatness for Pep Guardiola’s men

The League Cup represents a marker, a tangible first signpost of a leading team's power and how much they could win

It was a little giveaway of the private mindset behind the Manchester City team, despite the manager publicly insisting he thinks it's impossible for the club to take home every single major trophy this season. After his side’s last match against Chelsea, that complete 6-0 humiliation two weeks ago, Pep Guardiola was asked whether these players now have the same will as his all-conquering 2009 Barcelona. The journalist made a slip, though, as he referenced how the Catalans had won "all five” trophies that year.

“Six,” Guardiola so quickly interrupted, a huge smile on his face.

So much for the idea that winning everything in a season represents a mere record that a purist process-manager like the Catalan doesn’t really bother himself with.

The satisfaction at doing so is clearly there. The experience of doing so is clearly there. And now, the will to do so is there, in a much more acute sense than just “trying to perform at our best in every game”.

The quadruple, at the very least, is in view.

And while that is a word that Guardiola doesn’t really want used around the City camp, because he knows it can thereby become the kind of fixation that actually ends up unhelpful, it will be impossible not to mention it if they again beat Chelsea on Sunday.

Winning the League Cup, once more, is about so much more than just lifting England’s most insignificant major trophy.

It is again about something greater, in this case maybe the greatest feat European football has ever seen. It is about completeness, maximum possible success, Total Football’s modern high priest on earth bringing total domination - and something that’s never been done before.

There is of course a very good reason the quadruple has never been done before by an English team, and it is why most at City - including Guardiola - know it is unlikely. The pursuit just brings too many tough games in too short a time, with the taxing stakes of those fixtures only further taxing the physical and psychological fitness of the squad. You’re just bound to slip somewhere, as every team going for this in history has proved.

There are some City players who do genuinely believe it’s possible, though, and that is at least bolstered by the fact they have so far surpassed all but four teams in history.

That is because the League Cup final comes on the 24 February, and only four previous teams have still had a chance of the quadruple past that date. All, of course, won the League Cup too.

Nottingham Forest 1978-79 brought their challenge to the 26 February, when they were beaten in the FA Cup fifth round. They also finished second in the league, but won the first of two successive European Cups.

Guardiola’s own predecessors at City in 2013-14 went to 9 March, when they were eliminated from the Champions League at the last-16 stage. They went on to win the league, but were knocked out of the FA Cup in the sixth round.

Chelsea 2006-07 got as far as the 1 May, only to be beaten by Liverpool on penalties in the Champions League semi-finals. They mathematically lost the title to Manchester United the following week, but then beat the new league champions in the FA Cup.

Pep Guardiola lifted a record six trophies with Barcelona in the 2009 season (Getty)

United’s own challenge for the quadruple the very next season didn’t last as long as Chelsea’s in terms of time, but went closer than anyone in terms of games. They were a mere three matches from glory, having lost in the semi-finals of the FA Cup - on 19 April - and final of the Champions League, when they’d already lifted the League Cup and Premier League.

It is relevant, and obvious, that most of these near misses came in the last 13 years. That is because Chelsea 2006-07, United 2008-09 and City 2013-14 were by then all modern “super clubs”, with super-funded squads that had the strength in depth to weather such demands in a way that was impossible for the majority of history.

That makes the feats of Liverpool 1983-84 and United 1998-99 - not to mention, in Scotland, Celtic 1966-67 - all the more impressive.

But this is also why there is genuinely more logic to the idea of City maybe being the side to finally do it.

As the most lavishly-funded football project in the history of the game, to the point that everything around the team has effectively been built so it is the ideal working environment for their ideal manager in Guardiola, they should be able to weather these demands better than anyone. They are the ultimate super-squad.

City have a long way to go to securing the quadruple (Getty Images)

The completeness of the quadruple is arguably the logical end point of such complete investment, if one depressing for everyone else in the game.

That doesn’t make actually completing the job any easier.

There is still a significant chasm between now being able to see the four trophies, and being able to seize them.

A feat of such wide-scale difficulty can be so easily undone by what seems the most minor of bounces, in a single game. There’s a contradictory fragility to what would be a show of such power. And that’s even before we get to the difficulty that Guardiola has had with the Champions League in recent seasons, a riddle he has become head-rubbingly obsessed with solving. Many feel he'd sign for that over the quadruple.

In that regard, there’s also the more pointed fact that City have only surpassed so many sides in terms of time. They haven’t surpassed anyone yet in terms of trophies. They've so far won nothing this season.

That actually only amplifies the effect of the League Cup, and not just because of the obvious point that - well - the entire quadruple falls at the first hurdle without it.

It is about how success propels success, creating a psychological momentum around it all, fortifying belief and thereby application.

City emerged triumphant in the League Cup last season (Getty)

It does not feel a coincidence that the two most far-conquering dynasties in English football history, and most successful in Europe, actually made a habit of winning the League Cup.

Liverpool 1980-85 won it three times in a row. Manchester United 2006-11 won it three times.

The League Cup represented a marker, a tangible first signpost of their power and how much they could win. They could barely cede the first and most insignificant trophy of the season.

It ensures the League Cup means something more than the League Cup, as City undeniably feel going into this Sunday.

There is total focus in the camp as they aim for totality.