If Manchester City’s spectacular rise under 10 years of Abu Dhabi rule needed emphasising, it came on Friday afternoon.
It came as the most celebrated manager on the planet offered words of sympathy and encouragement to the Premier League champions’ fiercest rivals in their time of turmoil.
Pep Guardiola has had his run-ins with Jose Mourinho - but there was little sign of that as he backed the Manchester United manager to overturn the biggest crisis of his Old Trafford reign.
Saturday marks 10 years to the day that Sheikh Mansour turned English football on its head by assuming control of City.
At that point he may have been the only man who seriously envisaged the power shift witnessed over the following decade.
And the appointment of Guardiola looks like being his crowning glory.
A record-breaking Premier League title last season, as well as the EFL Cup, has placed City at the summit of English football.
Mourinho was appointed by United with the intention of halting that ascent - but that has never looked less likely than at the start of a campaign that has seen the pressure piled on the Portuguese manager’s shoulders as he desperately attempts to stop his reign from unravelling.
Mourinho insists he deserves respect and that he remains “one of the best managers in the world.”
And Guardiola became an unlikely ally on Friday when saying: “Of course we are judged for the titles we get, especially because if you won titles, you have worked.
“The history, the way Jose did in all the places he was - it's hats off. There is no doubts about his quality.”
There is a continuing theme that will not be lost on City fans, who are looking to the future with dreams of what more Guardiola’s genius and Abu Dhabi riches can achieve.
Mourinho’s impassioned defence of his record on two occasions in the past week have referred to the past - to former glories.
He’d won two of his three Premier League titles before the name Sheikh Mansour meant anything to the average football fan.
At City - particularly under Guardiola - talk is of the future, of what more he can bring to the Etihad after signing a new three-year deal in the summer.
Privately he is obsessed with winning a third Champions League crown away from Barcelona, where he claimed his previous two.
He wants to become the first City manager to win back-to-back league titles.
He faces fresh challenges from an emerging Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp, a Chelsea side that already look transformed under Maurizio Sarri and Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham.
Mourinho, meanwhile, faces significant challenges of his own.
