Man City’s Akanji on Guardiola, treble repeat, ‘dirty wins’

MANCHESTER, England — Manuel Akanji sits in a room at Manchester City’s training ground, surrounded by photos of him lifting the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. The question is whether, after winning the treble in his first season following a £15 million move from Borussia Dortmund in 2022, you can still have the same hunger for success having already achieved something almost impossible.

When the answer comes, it’s delivered with a smile, but there’s nothing funny about the sentiment behind it: City and Akanji aren’t done winning.

“I didn’t win the Carabao Cup and we can’t win it this year, so I hope I can do it,” Akanji said in an exclusive interview with ESPN. “The Community Shield as well, we missed it. We had a really good season. It doesn’t get much better than that, winning the treble in the first year. It’s been really good.”

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That doesn’t really do it justice. City became the first English team in almost a quarter of a century to win the treble and thus win the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history. The celebrations, which included a parade of open-top buses through rain-soaked Manchester, lasted most of the summer, but the 2023-24 season is now in full swing, and a new target has already been set for his second season in the championship. Etihad Stadium.

“To repeat,” he said. “If we don’t win, it will be a disappointment. I want to win all the trophies again.”

“The treble is really difficult to achieve but, yes, our goal is to win it every year. Obviously we will be disappointed if, say, we lose in the quarter-finals of the Champions League because we want to go to the final and we we want to play for these trophies but sometimes the opponent is better or our performance was not good enough.

“But I think everyone in the team wants to win every game and that’s why we are always disappointed when we lose a game. We want to win the treble again,” adds Akanji.

Already European champions and Super Cup winners against Sevilla, winners of the Europa League in August, City can be crowned the best club team in the world if they win the Club World Cup in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in December . Pep Guardiola’s side are also looking to win a fourth consecutive Premier League title, but there is a downside to any success, something the Catalan coach explained to his players during their first team meeting of the summer in July.

“He said it was going to be even harder,” Akanji recalled. After a year like that, to start again and win these titles because a lot of people are going to expect it from us now because they are going to say we are the best team in Europe and we have to prove it in every game .Every team is going to come for us and it’s not going to be easy.

“Maybe already before because City have won the Premier League so many times and all the teams meet us and want to beat us. Now there is probably even greater motivation.”

They have already found out how difficult the season will be, losing three times in four games in late September and early October. City have bounced back with five straight wins, but their next three Premier League matches, against Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, will be a test of their title credentials. It is worrying for the other challengers that City are already top of the table.

“It will be a challenge,” says Akanji. “That’s what we want, to win these games. We lost to Arsenal and we weren’t happy about it. It’s not easy and we know we can do better. We knew we had to react and I think we’ve done it. We’re on the right track now.

“If we go into the games and show our best performance, it’s really difficult to beat us. We know we have to be at our best because if we let a little bit slip away, then the teams are there and waiting. There’s a lot good teams in the league, so we have to be at our best.”

The string of tough matches either side of the international break could require what Akanji calls “dirty wins”, something the defender says City have mastered just as much as silky, possession-based football. There is a beauty to Guardiola’s team but also a strength that can sometimes be underestimated.

“It’s impossible to be at your best in every match,” Akanji says. “Sometimes you have to adapt and sometimes you have to have a bad win when you’re not playing your best. But these are the most important ones, when you’re not at your best. When we’re at our best. we know what we can do but it’s even harder to win when we’re not at our best. That’s how you win these titles.

“Let’s talk about the Champions League final because we weren’t at our best. Inter could have scored two or three goals but you need games like this to win these trophies.”

With tests against some of the Premier League’s best teams unfolding quickly over the next month, it helps that City can rely on a manager who doesn’t really know how to lose. Guardiola’s impact on his players is so great, according to Akanji, that even though he arrived at the Etihad as an experienced Swiss international defender, he almost had to relearn the game from scratch.

“Certainly!” he laughs when asked if it is true that Guardiola’s management is making players question what they thought they knew about football. “I think you can feel it when you join the national team and play with other players who haven’t been with him. You learn a lot with him.

“It makes you a little nervous at first. It’s demanding but that’s what I came here for. I want to get better every day and I want to win every game I play. It lets you know that It’s not just about “Football. It’s about me as a person. My son was born a few days after I signed here and I asked him if I could go to Switzerland and he said “yes, take your time and come back when you’re ready”. For him it’s not just about football and that’s why it’s easy to be here.”

A full trophy cabinet after just one year in Manchester has also helped, but Akanji and City are not done winning yet.