Manchester City on Saturday tasted UEFA Champions League glory at last as a second-half Rodri strike gave the favorites a 1-0 victory over Inter in a tense final, allowing Pep Guardiola’s side to complete a remarkable treble.
Rodri fired in from a Bernardo Silva cutback midway through the second half at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium to decide a game in which City were knocked out of their usual rhythm and lost Kevin De Bruyne to injury.
Erling Haaland, scorer of 52 goals this season, went a fifth straight match without finding the net, but City had enough to edge out opponents who had never been expected to get this far.
Photo: AFP
“It wasn’t easy. What a team we faced, unbelievable,” Rodri told British broadcaster BT Sport.
Having already claimed a fifth Premier League title in six seasons, and added the FA Cup, City are the first English club to win such a treble since Manchester United in 1999.
That same month 24 years ago, City won the English third-tier playoff final on penalties against Gillingham.
Now they have established themselves as England’s dominant side and have finally added the biggest prize in European club soccer, two years after losing to Chelsea in their first final.
The match was watched by owner Sheikh Mansour, who made a rare appearance at a City game as his team capped their rise from also-rans to superpower in the years since he bought the club in 2008.
“I think we made history. The good thing is that we want more. This project is to want more, more ambition,” Rodri said.
Twelve years after last lifting the trophy with Barcelona, Guardiola joins an elite club of coaches to have won the competition three times.
“It’s so difficult to win it,” Guardiola said, before adding that City’s triumph this season was “written in the stars.”
Inter had hoped to spring a surprise and lift the trophy for the fourth time. It was not to be, but Simone Inzaghi’s side will be back in the competition again next season.
“We didn’t deserve to lose,” Inzaghi said. “We played against a top team, absolutely, but Inter also played a great final.”
Victory for Guardiola’s men, to go with the three titles of rivals United, means Manchester becomes just the second city to produce two different winners of the competition, after Milan.
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