After returning to Manchester from Milan, Man City took only a brief rest before heading south to London without stopping, checking into the manor hotel they had booked well in advance.
After learning their lesson from last time, when they had competed with Manchester United, Man City now booked hotels early whenever they played a London team away from home. This time, the League Cup final was being held at Wembley Stadium in London, so Man City stayed at this familiar hotel once again.
The hotel had hosted Man City several times, so both sides knew each other well and had plenty of experience.
The team had enjoyed victory after victory in the first half of the season, but after February began, their form had indeed dipped. First they had drawn with Everton, then with AC Milan. Both matches had been away games, and neither opponent had been weak, but a draw was still a draw.
This really was not surprising.
The coaching staff repeatedly emphasized that it was the result of pressure accumulated after the team had competed on multiple fronts for so long. From Christmas to the Winter Break in particular, Man City had played more matches than the other teams, so naturally their pressure was greater.
But to the players, a draw was still a draw, and it had affected them to some extent.
Cardiff was not a strong team. In the current English Championship, they sat only eighth, and in the just-concluded thirty-second round, they had lost 0–3 away to Ipswich.
On paper, this was not a match between evenly matched sides.
But matches on a football pitch were never decided simply by piling up strength. If the winner could be determined just by looking at the teams' paper strength, there would be no need to