Ticked: Sports Events Summary Clip, May 17 (Sports5)
Manchester City will meet Inter Milan in the Champions League final in Istanbul on June 10. The English champions defeated Real Madrid 0-4 on Wednesday night to reach the second final in their history, where they will try to make amends for their 2021 final defeat, win the coveted European title for the first time and give Pep Guardiola the big-eared trophy after 12 years.
Surprisingly enough, this will be the first official meeting ever between the two teams. Manchester City have only been a regular member of the Champions League for the last decade and Inter have been absent from the factory for part of that period, but even decades before that did not happen. The Citizens had met Milan in the 1978 UEFA Cup and Juventus in the same factory two years earlier, but there was no official match against the Nerazzurri. The teams only played preparatory matches: Inter won 0-3 twice in the summer of 2010 and City won by the same result a year later in Dublin.
Scored against Inter as a player. Pep Guardiola in April 2002 (Photo by Getty Images, Grazia Neri)
Pep Guardiola played twice against Inter Milan in the 2001/02 season and even scored a penalty at the San Siro, but Ronaldo made it 1-2. Before that, Inter had won 1-3.
As manager, Pep lost to Inter once in four matches (all with Barcelona), but that loss cost him elimination in the Champions League semi-finals. Jose Mourinho's Nerazzurri won 1-3 in April 2010 and then lost only 1-0 on aggregate, went on to the final and also won the European title for the third and final time so far.
* In the final, he will meet Simona Inzaghi for the first time, who has developed expertise in knockout matches and in particular finals. He won the Coppa Italia with Inter last season and reached the final this season as well, lifting the trophy with Lazio in 2019 and two years earlier reaching the final (the only one he lost). In addition, he won the Italian Supercopa in all four of his entries (twice with Lazio and twice with Inter).
* As players, the two met on three occasions: Guardiola beat Inzaghi's Italy 0-2 with Spain in a friendly in March 2000, while in the Italian league Inzaghi scored and cooked in Lazio's 0-5 win over Pep's Brescia in April 2001 and also won 1-3 in May 2003.
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He was a key partner in City's first league title in 44 years. Edin Dzeko in 2012 (Photo by Getty Images, Alex Livesey)
Edin Dzeko is the only Ex City player in Inter's squad. In January 2011, the English paid him €32 million and he provided 72 goals in 189 games in all competitions, during four and a half seasons at the club. He contributed to two league titles, including the dramatic equaliser against KPR in the 2011/12 coronation game, before Con Aguero scored the championship goal. He also had one trophy, a League Cup and a Community Shield.
* Inter's Lautaro Martinez and Manchester City's Julián Alvarez are the only two who can be European champions with the team after becoming world champions with Argentina. Lautaro started the World Cup as the first striker and Julián took his place and became a senior player during the tournament.
Apart from them, there are two good friends who have been together for years in the Belgium national team: Romelu Lukaku of Inter Milan and Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City, who have already met in the final. City's Nathan Ake plays for the Netherlands with Denzel Dumfries and Stefan de Vrij of Inter.
- sport
- World Football
- UEFA Champions League
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- Manchester City
- Inter
- Pep Guardiola
