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Some consolation for Pep Guardiola and Manchester City this weekend as they beat Mikel Arteta's Arsenal with two goals after half time to lift the Carabao Cup. Arteta should still win the Premier League (at least) but his rival did outsmart him in one other area, too: his wrist game.
Avowed one-watch-guy Arteta was wearing what he always wears: a steel Rolex GMT-Master II. It’s a proper workhorse watch – that GMT function must come in handy when he’s jetting around Europe for the Champions League – and has an unshowy all-black bezel, unlike many more colourful Rolex GMT variants.
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Now there’s nothing wrong per se with relying on the same watch 24/7; doing so has its own kind of singular style. But in the relentless world of top-flight football, adaptability is key, something Guardiola well knows. Not only has he been pulling off some surprising style moves recently – an Our Legacy flannel shirt, no less, last week – but his watch choices are consistently creative. Yesterday’s was an IWC Schaffhausen Portugieser Perpetual Calendar in yellow gold. A perpetual calendar does a lot more than provide a date window – it keeps track of the date, day, month, and year, with a moonphase complication thrown in on this model for good measure. Appropriate for a far-sighted technician who can see past runs of bad form to take a long view on things.
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It’s on the dressier end of what Guardiola has in his armoury, complementing the likes of his A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetual 410.038. As per similar high-calibre operators in the sports world, he usually leans on his brace of Richard Milles, including the million-pound RM 61-01. His love for the brand is at the point where it made him his own special edition, the RM 010 Manchester City Automatic, in his club’s shade of light blue.
Now, we’re not suggesting that if only Arteta dropped the equivalent of a London townhouse on some skeletonised titanium, Arsenal’s quadruple hopes would still be on. But we are saying one watch – even one as classy as his – can only take you so far. Maybe celebrating the club’s first Premier League win in 22 years will be a good excuse to make a new signing or two.