Manhester City’s victory in the Champions League
Saturday night at the Ataturk olympic stadium, Pep Guardiola completed his task while the chief executive officer looked on from the stands. Guardiola has done exactly what Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan recruited him to achieve by leading manchester city to their first champions league triumph, but by also winning a Treble, he has added the most amazing flourish.
Simply put: other English clubs have won the Premier league, FA cup, and Champions league in the same season as Manchester United. Rodri’s strike in the 68th minute gave Guardiola’s City a 1-0 victory over Inter Milan.
Guardiola has won five Premier league titles since moving to the Etihad in 2016, engineered a domestic Treble in 2019, and led city to 100 points in the 2017–18 season, the only side to achieve it in the Premier League history. Despite all of that achievement, the champions league had a history of disappointment and close calls, including losing the final to Chelsea in Porto.
Guardiola had even stated prior to this game that until his City team and his time at the club won the champions league, they could not be considered legendary. however, the wait is finally over, and for City and their followers, Istanbul will always be synonymous with ultimate victory.
Guardiola claimed, “it was written in the stars.”
The achievement belongs to Guardiola, and while it was undoubtedly Manchester City‘s night, the strain he has been under to lead the team to European championship glory was evident in his sobbing relief at the game’s conclusion, that tension was likely increased by Sheikh Mansour’s attendance during the game. Despite investing more than £2 billion in the team since purchasing City in september 2008, he had only ever attended one game, a victory against Liverpool at home in 2010. Guardiola’s team-building effort has been funded by a man, so the idea of having to apologize or wish him luck in the future was definitely not anything he wanted to think about.
There is no denying that Sheikh Mansour and the club’s Abu Dhabi leadership have treated Guardiola like a favorite kid, but he is the best manager in the world and possibly the best of all time, therefore he has been given special treatment for a reason. Haaland, Rodri, and Ilkay Gundogan, Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias, and Ederson, who made two crucial saves from Romelu Lukaku and Robin Gosens as inter sought a late equalizer, are among the players he welcomed and improved.
At Istanbul’s Ataturk olympic stadium, Manchester city defeated Internazionale 1-0 to win the champions league title, the sole goal of Saturday’s game was scored by Rodri after a scoreless first half in which Kevin De Bruyne left the game early due to a hamstring injury. Pep Guardiola’s team had already won the Premier league and the FA cup.
Romelu Lukaku, a substitute for Inter, had a wonderful opportunity to tie the score late on, but Ederson managed to block his header. Italians made a late push for a goal, but City held on to win the title of European champions for the first time in history.
