LONDON: Majestic Manchester City crushed Watford 6-0 in the FA Cup final on Saturday to become the first team to win the English treble of league championship and both domestic cups in the most emphatic way imaginable.

The victory matched the competition’s record final win — set when Bury beat Derby County 116 years ago — and was the perfect end to an amazing season for unarguably one of the finest teams to grace the long history of the English game.

Coming after they retained the Premier League title last week and won the League Cup in a penalty shootout over Chelsea, City’s sixth FA Cup triumph made them the eighth team to win the prized League and FA Cup double and first since Chelsea in 2010.

Raheem Sterling was initially credited with a hat-trick, only for his first goal to later be awarded to Gabriel Jesus, who also got two as City ended their 61-game season with 169 goals, beating their own previous best of 156.

“It was an incredible final for us and we have finished an incredible year,” City manager Pep Guardiola said. “The players deserve all the recognition. To have gone 10 months in all competitions and be the first team to do that is incredible.”

City, 2-0 up at halftime through David Silva and Jesus, effectively sealed the deal when Kevin de Bruyne came off the bench to smash in the third after 61 minutes.

Jesus slotted the fourth before Sterling, who was brought up in the shadow of the stadium, took centre stage with two in the last 10 minutes.

“What a season,” City captain Vincent Kompany said. “What a tremendous club.”

But the unprecedented achievement by football’s costliest squad comes against the backdrop of investigations into City’s compliance into football’s spending rules that could lead to the Abu Dhabi-owned team being banned from the Champions League.

More than $1 billion has been spent on transfer fees alone since 2008 when Sheikh Mansour bought a team that was more accustomed to playing in lower leagues than lifting trophies.

It wasn’t until 2011 that City ended a 35-year trophy drought by winning the FA Cup.

Now City are the undisputed power of English football a status they claimed from neighbours Manchester United.

Watford’s wait to win their first ever major piece of silverware goes on as after going behind they had little answer to Guardiola’s relentless champions.

“We knew we had to play the perfect game and started well but they were better, congratulations to them,” said Watford coach Javi Gracia.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2019