Man City Make History As They Beat Inter Milan 1-0 In Champions League Finals To Win Treble7 min read

Manchester City have clinched the Treble after winning the Champions League final by beating Inter Milan 1-0

The blue moon rose above the Bosphorus ,above the battalions of minarets that point to the sky, above the armies of cargo ships massing in the Sea of Marmara, and climbed so high and waxed so full that it cast its glow over a club whose name we once used as an affectionate code to signify misfortune and suffering.

Manchester City have lived in the shadow of a more glamorous local rival for much of their history but when they beat Internazionale at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium to complete an imperious Treble and win the Champions League for the first time, they strode out of that shadow and rushed into the light.

This was not the dominant performance so many had expected but it was enough. A beautifully taken second half goal from Rodri, the player Pep Guardiola famously left out of City’s defeat to Chelsea in the 2021 final, decided a match that at times felt ominously as if it was slipping away from the English champions.

But this time, after so many previous failures, City got the job done. The ‘noisy neighbours’ was the sneering epithet Sir Alex Ferguson once bestowed upon City but on the edge of the vast, teeming sprawl of Istanbul, the noisy neighbours finally shouted the house down and turned a corner of Turkey into a delirious outpost of Madchester.

The house Ferguson built fell more than a decade ago and the beautiful team that City’s driven, obsessive, genius coach Pep Guardiola has constructed now rules with a velvet glove that hides an iron fist.

City’s owner, Sheikh Mansour, watched his club in person for the first time in almost 13 years and he, and the rest of the world, saw City usher in a new era for football. City became the first of the petro-state sides to win the sport’s most prestigious club tournament and more will follow them.

The old order is rapidly fading and its grandes dames must have shuddered as City swept Inter aside. City’s victory completes the first stage of the Abu Dhabi project begun in 2008 when the state bought the club. For the rest of football, the scary version of what happened here is that this is just the beginning of a prolonged period of domination for teams like City, PSG and Newcastle United.

‘Welcome to Hell’, the signs held aloft by fervent local fans used to say when English teams arrived at the airport here and some rival fans will use that as a metaphor for the fact that the sport’s most prestigious prize has been won by a team facing 115 Premier League charges for alleged financial breaches. For others, this was not hell. For them, it was a welcome to a blue heaven.

It was, perhaps most of all, a triumph for Guardiola, who had been accused of blowing several previous City attempts to win the competition with ill-judged tactical changes. But even if they were far from their best last night, this is a majestic team that he has created, close to the equal of his Barcelona team that won two Champions League titles in 2008 and 2011.

Now Guardiola has removed any last remaining caveat to his place in the pantheon of the greatest coaches of all. His few detractors said he would never win the Champions League without Lionel Messi in his team but that barb has lost its sting. Any argument that he is not the greatest football coach of all time rings hollow.

So 53 years after City won their first European trophy, beating Górnik Zabrze in the 1970 Cup Winners’ Cup Final, they had another. ‘And all the roads we have to walk are winding,’ City fans sang, ‘And all the lights that lead us there are blinding.’

City fans had heeded Guardiola’s plea and avoided booing the Champions League anthem, which was played by a man sitting at a grand piano on the touchline. The supporters contented themselves with waving their flags and relishing the occasion.

It would not have been a Champions League final, of course, without Guardiola springing some sort of selection surprise and some were startled when it emerged he had left out Kyle Walker, one of City’s outstanding performers in recent weeks, and picked Nathan Ake instead.

City have become such a formidable unit, it barely seems to matter who they pick and they went close to opening the scoring after five minutes when Bernardo Silva teased Federico Dimarco inside the Inter box and curled a shot inches wide of the far post.

But Inter were not here for a meek surrender. They pressed City high and shook them out of their rhythm. Ederson passed a ball straight into touch, Rodri left a pass short, Ederson, again, played a pass straight to Nicolo Barella. Guardiola started to pace nervously in his technical area.

City burst into life midway through the half when De Bruyne and Haaland linked superbly, Haaland burst into the area and forced Andre Onana into a fine save. Minutes later, though, they suffered a grievous blow when De Bruyne pulled up in obvious discomfort.

De Bruyne tried to play on but he lasted until 10 minutes before half time when he admitted defeat. It was a cruel twist for City’s outstanding player. He was forced off early in the second half of the final in Porto two years ago, too. He was replaced by Phil Foden.

City did their best to find their groove. John Stones was everywhere in midfield, the half’s best player. But De Bruyne’s injury and City’s faltering performance spread a cloying kind of fear in their supporters. It couldn’t be happening again, could it?

If Inter offered very little going forward, City were well below their best in the first half, ineffectual, utterly lacking their usual fluency. They did not start the second half well, either. The City fans grew quiet and nervous. The Inter supporters roared and waved their giant flags and gave Romelu Lukaku a rousing reception when he replaced Edin Dzeko ten minutes after the interval.

City survived a major scare soon after. Bernardo Silva played a ball to Manuel Akanji but Akanji let it run on towards Ederson even though Martinez was lurking behind him. Martinez was on it in a flash and Guardiola sank to his knees on the touchline. Martinez advanced on goal but Ederson came out to meet him and blocked his shot.

Any hope that City were going to produce one of the most dominant performances in a Champions League final had long since disappeared by now. The match had turned into a war of attrition, a battling of niggling fouls and misplaced passes.

Then, it exploded. Midway through the half, Bernardo Silva escaped down the right and cut a ball back from the goalline. It brushed an Inter player and Haaland appealed for handball. But his appeal died in his throat.

The ball ran on to Rodri who was running in on the edge of the area. He met it without breaking stride and curled a fierce low shot past Onana into the corner of the net. In the stands, Sheikh Mansour looked pleased.

Two minutes later, Inter nearly drew level. Denzel Dumfries nodded a ball into the City box and Dimarco looped a header over Ederson and on to the face of the crossbar. The ball rebounded to Dimarco and he tried to force it over the line but Lukaku got in the way of it and inadvertently blocked it.

City nearly went further ahead when Foden produced the evening’s stand-out piece of sublime skill to drag the ball away from Dimarco in midfield and sprint towards goal. He hit his shot low towards the corner but Onana got down sharply to his left to keep it out.

Two minutes from the end, City had an incredible escape. The ball found its way to Lukaku four yards out with the goal at his mercy but the Belgium forward headed it straight at Ederson and it bounced off the goalkeeper’s shin before Ruben Dias headed it out.

The game began to ebb away from Inter and in the City end, the fans began to celebrate. ‘Blue moon,’ they sang, ‘you saw me standing alone.’ But they are alone no more. They have taken their place in the pantheon of English football’s elite.

Man City fans continue partying in Istanbul as they down pints and soak up the atmosphere in the sun before heading to Champions League final