SCOTT CARSON has gone hand in glove with Champions League great Paolo Maldini.
Even though the Manchester City No 3 didn’t even get his fingers on the ball.
Man City’s victory over Inter Milan saw Carson bridge an 18-year gap to lift his second winners’ medal. Just like Maldini did between his first and fifth triumphs in the competition.
And the AC Milan legend could not be blamed for thinking, if Carson does climb onto the winners’ podium: ‘Nice work if you can get it’. The revered Italian defender had to slog through a Milan career that covered 902 appearances and 25 seasons to gather that handful of precious victories.
Carson has had it a lot easier under Pep Guardiola — 900 games easier. The 37-year-old has worn the City shirt just twice — and on one of those occasions for only 17 minutes.
But after being named among the substitutes for the final he adds a second gong to the one he won with Liverpool in 2005 — while also sitting on the bench. In the same Ataturk Olympic stadium that staged City’s clash with Inter, he was back–up to Jerzy Dudek as Steven Gerrard inspired Liverpool’s Miracle of Istanbul.
By which time he had played a mere five games for Rafa Benitez’s side. Maldini’s first taste of glory in the Continent’s elite competition was a 4–0 win over Steaua Bucharest in 1989.
By 2007, he had his fifth, following a 2–1 victory over Liverpool. Carson’s own 18–year timeline was a lot different.
After that 2005 final he played only four more times for Liverpool before going on loan to Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton Athletic and Aston Villa. In 2008, although an England player, he was sold to West Brom for £3.75million before moving on to Bursaspor for £2m.
Carson was brought in by Guardiola from Derby County originally on loan in 2019. And, since then, things have taken a remarkable twist. Carson could already have a second winners’ medal having been in his usual spot — on the subs’ bench — as Ederson conceded the Kai Havertz goal that handed Chelsea a 1–0 victory in the 2021 final.
Only 15 days before the put-down in Porto that brought the Whitehaven–born keeper his consolation prize, Carson started his one and only Prem game for City in a 4–3 win over Newcastle. Yet he did save a penalty and, in doing so, bridged a different but equally amazing personal time gap.
For he had last played in a top-flight game TEN YEARS earlier for the Baggies — also against the Toon, drawing 3–3 on May 22, 2011. No other player has matched that particular record.
His one appearance for City in the Champions League came in last year’s 0–0 draw with Sporting Lisbon, when he replaced Ederson with City already five up on aggregate in that last-16 tie. Sometime stopper or not, Guardiola would never rain on Carson’s parade.
The keeper infamously dropped the first-goal clanger in England’s 3–2 defeat against Croatia in 2007 that cast Steve McClaren as the Wally with the Brolly and cost him his job after the Three Lions failed to qualify for the following year’s Euro finals. And Carson would gain only two more caps after that to take his tally to four.
But Guardiola, who has just given him another year’s contract, loves his No 3 and views him as an inspirational mentor inside the Etihad.
The City manager said: “The best advice I could give to the young players is to stay around Scott Carson as much as possible in the locker room and on the pitch. ‘Listen to him and pay attention’. That is the best advice and learning they can get about their future careers.”
In game time, Carson has not really had a City career at all. But, amazingly, he still joins Maldini in the record books because for him, when it comes to appearance numbers and Champions League gongs, who’s counting?.
