It warms your heart, the fairytale season this could prove to be for Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi.
The Manchester City duo living the dream.
A lot of focus has been on Antoine Semenyo.
However, the Marc Guehi ‘fairytale’ tugs on the heartstrings even more…
First though, Antoine Semenyo.
On 26 August 2025, Antoine Semenyo and Bournemouth exited the Carabao Cup, losing 2-0 at home to Brentford.
The end of the dream for another season.
Well, maybe for Eddie Howe’s old club it was, but not necessarily for the player.
Most fans totally unaware that ahead of this season’s competition, the rules had now changed, players can play for more than one club in the same season.
So it came to pass that Antoine Semenyo could play a key role in getting Manchester City to the final, starting both legs of the semi-final as Newcastle United were defeated. The player knocked out of the 2025/26 Carabao Cup with Bournemouth, BUT now very likely to win it with Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola is outraged that the ‘strict’ rules prevented Marc Guehi also playing against Newcastle United last night, even more outraged that he can’t play in the final now against Arsenal. By the way, this isn’t of course anything to do with the fact Marc Guehi was captain when Crystal Palace six weeks ago lost in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup to…Arsenal. Instead it is because Manchester City missed the ‘strict’ deadline, waiting until after the first leg of the semi-final at St James’ Park before they bought Marc Guehi.
Maybe with those 115 Premier League charges, which after years there is still no verdict (or punishment…), maybe Manchester City don’t think rules should apply to them…
Speaking of which, the rules just keep on changing in favour of the likes of Manchester City and those other clubs that are already the richest and most powerful.
It gets even better, or is that even worse?
The thing is, the Antoine Semenyo pales into insignificance really, when compared to the potential Marc Guehi fairytale which I have seen get very little, if any, mention so far.
Let me take you back 26 days…
Saturday 10 January 2026 at the romantically named The Leasing.com Stadium.
The greatest FA Cup shock ever.
Crystal Palace humiliated by an opposition that was 117 places below them, the largest ever gap and biggest ever FA Cup shock as Macclesfield humbled Palace 2-1.
If you thought it was a fairytale story when Macclesfield defeated Crystal Palace, you’ve head nothing yet.
What about if the captain that day of the team that were humiliated in the biggest ever FA Cup upset, still goes on to win this season’s FA Cup…? Well, it is the stuff of dreams isn’t it, something to warm the cockles. A true underdog story.
Plucky England international Marc Guehi captained Crystal Palace that day against Macclesfield, before then emotionally moving to Manchester City for reported wages of over £16m a year after cynically running his contract down until it had only six months remaining AND now he can complete the fairytale by winning the FA Cup with Man City this season.
Yes, it turns out that just as the Carabao Cup changed their rules ahead of this season, so did the FA Cup, so Marc Guehi and others can play for two clubs in the same season in the FA Cup now.
To be fair, the domestic cup competitions are only now catching up with UEFA, who back in the 2010s changed it so a player can play for two different clubs in the Champions League in any given season, the same case in the other UEFA competitions.
Marc Guehi and Antoine Semenyo can both of course now win the Champions League, having signed for Manchester City. An ultimate fairytale if Man City manage that AND win the Carabao Cup (that Semenyo had previously been knocked out of already) AND the FA Cup (that Guehi had previously already been knocked out of already).
It is as though all the remaining rules are disappearing in front of our eyes.
A bit like when Groucho Marx declared: “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them, well…, I have others.”
Next the World
The thing is, the whole of football is heading to hell in a handcart.
The embarrassing FIFA Club World Cup last summer, saw Infantino and friends decide the complicated criteria so that certain clubs would ‘qualify’ to take part.
They even fixed it so that Lionel Messi would be involved, applying specific illogical criteria purely for the MLS.
We have seen FIFA intervene to cut a ban for Cristiano Ronaldo, to allow him to play more matches than should have been the case, if that suspension hadn’t been touched.
What next?
Maybe one day they will simply change the rules so that if say a superstar such as a future Messi or Ronaldo, sees their country get knocked out of a World Cup in qualifying, or even in the group stage of a final, then they can move to and guest for another country.
If you think that sounds daft and could never happen, what about the fact everybody now sees it as nothing to raise questions about, how Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been awarded the hosting of World Cups and the finals get moved to winter?
I would put money on it, that within the next 10 or 20 years maximum, we will see rules change so that a player might play for say one country at a World Cup finals, then by the time the next one comes along, they play for a different country. I am thinking in particular of players who qualify to play for different countries through birth, parents, grandparents. At the moment they have to commit to one but they have already changed the criteria so that if it was only friendlies a player has played in for one country, then they can switch to another.
Why would we see it as such an unbelievable thing, if then FIFA change it so that if for example, you haven’t played more than a certain number of competitive games, or similar, then you can change countries???
You heard it here first.
Maybe Antoine Semenyo could be the one…he plays for Ghana currently but was born in England, so maybe he might fancy playing for the three lions? Maybe he can get Pep Guardiola to start a campaign…