Money doesn't talk anymore; it screams through a megaphone until your ears bleed. Manchester City rolled into the Peninsula Stadium this weekend with a squad valuation that looks like a typo and a tactical setup that feels less like sport and more like a high-frequency trading algorithm. They were there to play Salford City, the pet project of the Class of ’92, a club that’s basically a walking, talking Instagram ad for Manchester United nostalgia.

It went exactly how the spreadsheets predicted it would.

City walked away with a win, but the headline isn’t the scoreline. It’s Marc Guehi. The center-back, a £65 million piece of hardware City plugged into their defensive line to ensure their "clean sheet" KPI remains green, finally found the net. His maiden goal for the sky-blue machine didn't come from a moment of divine inspiration. It was a set-piece routine so practiced, so optimized, it felt like it had been compiled in a dev environment weeks ago.

Guehi rose above a Salford defense that, quite frankly, looked like it was running on legacy software. A header. A thud. The ball hit the back of the net, and the game was effectively over.

For the Beckham-Neville cohort sitting in the stands, it must have been a bitter pill. Salford City is supposed to be the disruptor. It’s the startup that bought its way into the Football League using the personal brands of Gary, Phil, Paul, and David as VC funding. They’ve spent years trying to scale, dumping cash into a League Two setup that usually survives on meat pies and local grit. But on Saturday, they ran into the enterprise-grade reality of City Football Group.

There’s a specific kind of friction when two versions of "new money" collide. Salford is the boutique agency with a flashy office and a great "About Us" page. Manchester City is AWS. They don't care about your story. They don't care about your heritage. They just have more compute power than you.

The match itself was a masterclass in boredom disguised as dominance. Pep Guardiola’s side kept the ball for what felt like three consecutive days. They moved it with a clinical, soul-crushing efficiency that makes you wonder if anyone actually enjoys watching this. Every pass is a data point. Every movement is a calculated risk-mitigation strategy. When Guehi scored, he didn't even look surprised. He looked like a man who had just successfully completed a routine software update.

Salford’s owners looked on from the directors' box, draped in expensive coats and the dawning realization that they are no longer the biggest spenders in the room. Not even close. David Beckham, a man whose face is its own global economy, looked particularly pensive. Maybe he was thinking about the branding implications of a 3-0 loss. Maybe he was just wondering why he didn’t buy a team in a league without a salary cap.

The FA Cup used to be the place where "magic" happened. That’s the marketing copy, anyway. The reality is that the gap between the haves and the have-somes has become a canyon. You can’t "giant-kill" when the giant is a multi-national conglomerate with a scouting department that uses satellite imagery to find the next great teenager.

Guehi is the perfect avatar for this era of City. He’s young, he’s incredibly expensive, and he’s flawlessly efficient. He doesn't make mistakes; he just experiences occasional latency. His goal was a reminder that in the modern game, the result is decided in the accounting office long before the whistle blows. Salford tried to play the role of the plucky underdog, but it’s hard to feel bad for a team owned by millionaires being beaten by a team owned by billionaires.

The game ended with the City fans singing about their inevitable march toward another trophy. The Salford fans went home to a city that is increasingly becoming a playground for developers and tech hubs, a fitting backdrop for a match that felt more like a corporate merger than a contest.

So, Guehi has his goal. City has their win. And the Class of ’92 has a very clear picture of what happens when your disruptor brand meets an actual monopoly.

If this is the future of the beautiful game, I’m starting to think the "legacy" version was better, even with the bugs.

Is a sport still a sport if the outcome is essentially a pre-rendered cutscene?