Manchester City arrive at Wembley on Saturday chasing something none of their recent rivals have managed: a domestic treble that would add another remarkable chapter to Pep Guardiola's tenure. Standing in the way is a Southampton side that has not lost in 20 games.
City's treble bid has been building quietly. Winning the Carabao Cup already secured, they are now top of the Premier League for the first time all season after a 1-0 win at Burnley on Wednesday. If they can beat Southampton and go on to win the FA Cup, they would replicate their 2019 feat of claiming the league, FA Cup and Carabao Cup in the same season.
It was not supposed to look like this. City spent much of the year nowhere near the title picture, sitting eighth in November, nine points behind Arsenal. They scraped into the Champions League top eight. Real Madrid ended their European campaign last month. But since that exit, Guardiola's side have won all five matches, including two victories over Arsenal, a 3-0 win over Chelsea and a 4-0 rout of Liverpool.
Southampton have earned their place in this semi-final the hard way. When 33-year-old German coach Tonda Eckert took charge in November, the club looked destined for a drop from the Championship to League One. Instead, he has engineered a 20-match unbeaten run across all competitions that has pushed Southampton into the play-off places, with a slim chance of automatic promotion still alive with two games left in the Championship season.
Eckert was working in the club's academy when the previous manager was sacked. He took over on an interim basis and never gave it back. Southampton already eliminated Arsenal in the FA Cup quarter-finals, a result that collapsed Arsenal's quadruple ambitions and effectively redirected the entire conversation about who might win what this season.
The FA Cup carries particular weight at Southampton. It has been 50 years since Bobby Stokes scored the winner in the 1976 final, delivering the only major trophy in the club's history. Should Eckert guide them past City and on to win the competition, he would join that small piece of Southampton folklore.
City are a different animal from the teams Guardiola built in his earlier years at the Etihad. Wednesday's narrow win at Burnley was not vintage stuff. But results have been the bottom line lately, and the results have gone their way. Whether an "unremarkable" squad, as Yahoo Sports described it, can complete something remarkable begins at Wembley on Saturday afternoon.
