Real Madrid Or Manchester City, The Choice Is Simple... Isn't It?

The Inter Milan and Brazil full-back Maicon recently was reported to have said that he didn’t want to play for Manchester City but that he wanted to follow his old boss Mourinho from the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza to the Bernabeu in Madrid.

Many people in the UK, especially those supporters of the ‘Big 4’ have laughed at this, pouring scorn on the Blues' chances of tempting world class players to Eastlands to become part of Sheik Mansour’s project of global footballing dominance.

“Citeh are a small club, with no history or tradition’ the fans of Man. United and Chelsea screech, highlighting either their lack of pre-Premier League knowledge or tender years.

The interesting point with this though is not whether Maicon signs for City or Real or stays at Inter but that for City, which ten years ago was contesting a 1^st Division (the old English second division) play-off final at Wembley against Gillingham, to be compared in the same breath as the most successful club team in Spain and arguably the most famous and best supported team in the world, shows how far the club has progressed in the space of a few short years.

The whole infrastructure and management of the club makes a huge difference; playing for Mancini under a chairmanship of Khaldoon al Mubarak is much more attractive than playing for Stuart Pearce with Thaksin Shinawatra looking over his shoulder.

The money has also helped, of course it has – who wouldn’t want to double their salary by moving to the blue half of the city but whilst the current lack of Champions League football will undoubtedly mean that players will choose Real, Barcelona, Chelsea and Bayern over City, there’s no denying that the club has been seriously catapulted towards the forefront of top players minds when deciding on their next club.

Whether they like it or not, the established elite of English football now have to start looking over their shoulder at these brave and bold upstarts from East Manchester.

Sir Alex Ferguson famously said that City will never in his lifetime be better than United.

Well, even the most respected and successful club manager in England is now starting to worry that he might have to eat his words because it’s possibly not ‘whether’ Manchester City will ever win the Premier League, it’s simply a case of ‘when’.