Manchester City may be able to do the impossible: Bringing Oasis together

If you have absolutely nothing to do with soccer, but you do like the legendary British pop band Oasis, watch the Champions League final tonight anyway.

Manchester City takes on Internazionale in Istanbul. If City win, it could very possibly put an end to the long-standing sibling feud between Liam and Noel Gallagher, who threw so much mud at each other that the band broke up in 2009.

The brothers continued to attack each other even after the breakup, while Oasis fans clamored for a reunion. But over the years, the two only seemed to hate each other more. Now they both tour solo and their contact consists mostly of snark back and forth via social media.

Their love for Manchester City, the club of their youth, seems to be the only thing that still binds the brothers a little.

Ahead of the Champions League final, Liam Gallagher turned the world of Oasis fans upside down. Indeed, he seemed to hint on Twitter at a reunion, should City win the Champions League for the first time in its history.

Of course, it could be a bluff or mischief – Liam Gallagher’s tweets, chalked up without punctuation, are not always to be taken seriously – but rumors of an Oasis reunion had been swelling in recent months anyway.

Indeed, the story had been going around for some time that when their solo tours are finished in two years, the brothers want to perform together. If so, Noel and Liam must be able to keep from getting into each other’s hair.

That would be a minor miracle. Their insults are as relentless as they are funny. The most famous sneer was from Noel to Liam: “I loved our mother until she gave birth to Liam.”

Even the love for City stems from a family feud, Liam explained. “The reason we are not for United but City is because my father hated his brothers. Our father chose City purely to sicken his brothers.”

In any case, Pep Guardiola, City’s Spanish success coach, will want to do everything he can to help bring the brothers back together.

He is a big fan of Oasis and previously asked Noel Gallagher to bring his guitar to games at the Etihad Stadium so he could play a tune in the locker room for the star-studded company of Erling Haaland, Kevin de Bruyne and Nathan Aké.

Manchester City fans have often been called ‘plastic fans‘ called. Indeed, the Etihad remained quite empty at times, even during big games. Those who did attend were seen as ‘gloryhunters’, ignorant of the culture and history of the club.

For City, the Gallaghers are a fine answer to that criticism. As children in the 1970s, Noel and Liam came with their father to Maine Road, the old, iconic stadium that was razed in 2003.

As adolescents, they stood on the Kippax, the side of the stadium with the most fanatical and noisiest City fans. After the huge successes with Oasis and the arrival of the Etihad Stadium, they moved to a spot in the skybox, where they stand singing and shouting among the club bosses and businessmen.

That there is nothing “plastics” about the brothers’ club love is something City itself realizes. The club likes to use them as signboards.

When Guardiola was appointed coach, Noel was put forward for an initial interview. And most recently Liam flashed by in a campaign video for the new shirt on TikTok.

The Gallaghers are almost always there when there is something to celebrate for City, which has happened incredibly often since 2008. Every now and then, Noel shows up in the locker room, including in late April after the important league victory over Arsenal.

Then he was photographed with the unstoppable striker Haaland, who shot one goal record after another in his first year in Manchester.

The blond goalgetter was already casting himself as a dove of peace among the Gallaghers. Could he become the man to bring Oasis back together? “Maybe they have a Norwegian peacekeeper needed to bring them together.”

That photo they took together, Noel Gallagher and Haaland, showed the striker in his underpants. It enticed Noel to make another bold promise: If Haaland makes three in Istanbul, he will perform in underwear.

Perhaps it’s some consolation to Oasis fans if that much-desired reunion doesn’t happen.