Post by Marc Larcher on 18 from 2022
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The documentary looks back on the extraordinary adventure of Manchester City which in 2012 will see the club put an end to 44 years of failure and win the English championship. After a hellish season
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United’s little brother’s revenge
“Since the first day I put on my crampons, I knew something was going to happen” Gaël Clichy was right. With the 2011-2012 season of the English championship that this documentary revisits, it is one of the most beautiful stories of football that we relive on the small screen. It is true that the scenario is ideal: the English club Manchester City is the eternal second in the city, not titled since 1968, crushed each year by the prize list and the celebrity of its big brother, Manchester United. “At the time, we were just the noisy neighbour”, the noisy and cumbersome neighbor explains a player. And yet, this will be the year of the click.
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A season in the form of a roller coaster
In this city where we are red, United, or blue, City, the French and Belgians at the center of this epic tell it with ten years of hindsight. We see them listening to the comments and the noise of the crowd through headphones and on their faces, the magic is working again. At the start of the season, the players are aware that the team is just a collection of great talents, that they have everything to build.
During these interviews, Samir Nasri plays cards on the table: “I said to myself: either you go to a club that hasn’t won anything for 48 years and if you win at City, you will become a legend, or you go to a huge club, United, and you will be a player among all those who have been there”. He made the right choice because, in the first match, he made three assists and the Argentinian striker Aguerro scored two goals and made one assist. The players have a lot of character, some would say too much, but the Italian coach Carlos Mancini has even more. From the start of the season, he fired one of his stars, Carlos Tevez, for several months. It’s one of the many twists and turns of a crazy season and one of the words that comes up the most in the mouths of the players is “chaos”.
A chaos which nevertheless gives birth to magic as when City wins at Old Trafford, the lair of big brother United 6-1, is unheard of! They even make the best start in the history of the English championship but very quickly the confusion and the conflicts will catch up with them as when Mario Balotelli refuses that one of his comrades takes a penalty. The clashes with the coach, also bloodthirsty, will multiply until at the end of the season, ten days from the end, Manchester City loses the lead in the championship.
Only, it is precisely the moment when the banished Tevez makes his return. And as in a good scenario, on the penultimate day of the championship, City welcome United who have doubled them in the standings. It’s the derby of the century, a match watched by 650 million viewers worldwide. A single victory? Yes and no because Samir Nasri and the coach get confused just before, the midfielder is kicked out of training…
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A grand finale
That day, it will finally be the discreet captain who will score while a certain Maradona watches the match from the stands. There is still “the trap match”, the formality to win against the 18th in the championship that the documentary takes care to tell in detail.
The dream night starts like a nightmare, the supposed foil will lead 2-0 and give United the title until… the fantastic comeback begins and the Mancunian club score the winning goal 3-2 at the last minute.
Once again, the group proved that the players had enormous character and the heart of a champion. As Nasri says, smiling ten years later, such a story “Even Hitchcock couldn’t have written it”.
BLUE MANCHESTER, a documentary available only on CANAL+
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