When young children are encouraged to enroll in sports at school, there are often ulterior motives behind the mascarade of physical activity, fun and frolic. In speaking with a close friend a few weeks ago, one thing that we unanimously agreed on was that sport is often a great way for visual and experiential learning about the effects of hard work, and perhaps just as importantly, that talent sometimes isn’t judiciously distributed across the board. My folks often told me to work hard in school, and bring home the gold at the end of the year. While this personally motivated me because I’d long had role models to look up to, it often doesn’t suffice for growing children. At home, my family stressed the importance of sport too – not least because my mother still craves the joy that it inevitably brings.
Today, Wolverhampton Wanderers must have remembered all the reasons their families pushed them into sports at an early age – stay active, learn the value of teamwork, and how to graciously accept defeat, as long as you have given it your all. In their away encounter against Manchester City – the country’s (and perhaps the continent’s) most in-form and ludicrously talented team, barring an early own-goal, Wolves defended as a pack. Robust, compact and technically adept, they kept City at bay for large parts of the first half and the beginning of the second.
Ten or so minutes into the second half (astonishingly), they then had the audacity to score a goal off a free kick, exposing City’s high defensive line. In commentary, Sky Sports’ Martin Tyler even began to suggest Wolves could hold on, especially as their solitary goal was followed by a spell of possession and half-chances.
Then, perhaps inevitably, the floodgates opened. The Sky Blues began to zip the ball around the pitch. What followed was a series of pirouettes, crosses, darting runs, dribbles, nutmegs and the glitz and glamor that the world has learned to associate the team with.
Wolves, to their part continued defending, moving to a lower block with each spin act that Riyad Mahrez performed. Suddenly, in a spell of seven minutes, the Mancunians created about a dozen chances that can be categorized firmly between half chances and clear cut ones, with the inevitable Kevin De Bruyne creating space for the scampering Sterling to run into, Bernardo Silva treating Wolves’ midfield players as training cones as he played neat exchanges with the aforementioned Mahrez. If that wasn’t cumbersome enough, City’s marauding and pacy right-back Kyle Walker and technically brilliant right-back/left-back/attacking-midfileder Joao Cancelo were overlapping and putting in cross after cross, one of which the by-Pep-standards profligate Gabriel Jesus smashed into an empty net after a superb parried save by Wolves keeper Rui Patricio.
Wolves’ heads were beginning to drop, as every attempt to run past the centre circle were vociferously shut down by a relentless, energetic and intimidating press. Personally, having grown up watching the sport, I had never had the pleasure of watching a full-back flick the ball over the head of one of the league’s most seductive attacking talents until tonight – the victim in question, Adama Traore wouldn’t look out of place at any other ‘Big Six’ team barring City.
Eventually, their relentless hunger paid off – with Goal 3 coming from a move involving atleast eight City players, after Pep Guardiola almost disrespectfully brought on Ilkay Gundogan with 9 minutes to go. Apart from the use of their supremely gifted personnel, there were two skillful nutmegs courtesy Mahrez and De Bruyne, the latter finally resulting in a left-footed shot into the net by Mahrez. Finally, with just the whistle to come, Jesus poached another goal, turning a Walker cross that ricocheted off Saiss into the gaping net, drawing a weary smile from the fallen defender, as if to acknowledge that he and his team were up against a superior force.
In conclusion, sport is a always a great leveller. Even this team will fall one day. After all, they were twelfth in the table in the early stages – when my team occupied spots closer to the top. When the opposition are as gifted, well-coached and seductive as Manchester City, overwhelming brilliance finds its way to come to the fore. Wolves will do well to remember that, in their travels to lesser teams than tonight’s rivals. As for City, the quadruple is on. The hype, for once, is well and truly justified.
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