Source: sportingnews.com
Manchester City travel to Copenhagen in the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League this week, with Pep Guardiola’s side attempting to retain their European title.
City have featured in the Champions League for 13 consecutive seasons since their debut in 2011/12, but the big prize proved elusive.
This occurred in increasingly galling fashion under Guardiola, with a limp defeat to Chelsea in the 2021 final followed by Real Madrid pulling off a remontada for the ages in the semifinals a year later.
Last June, Guardiola’s latest shot at his first Champions League crown in more than a decade and City’s first in their history arrived against Inter Milan.
Here’s how the Premier League champions got the job done at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, completing a historic treble.
After hammering RB Leipzig 7-0 in the second leg of their last-16 tie – where Erling Haaland plundered five goals — City downed a pair of formidable Champions League heavyweights in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Rodri opened the scoring against Bayern Munich during a well-matched first half at the Etihad Stadium before goals from Bernardo Silva and Haaland helped City to pull away during the second period. A 1-1 draw at the Allianz Arena rubber-stamped their progress to a third successive semifinal and that scoreline was replicated against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, as Vinicius Jr. and Kevin De Bruyne exchanged fabulous long-range strikes.
In the return in Manchester a week later, Madrid were brutally blown away, with a first-half brace from the effervescent Silva setting up a romping 4-0 win.
Although those performances were headline-grabbing, a team of City’s ample quality reaching the final was not exactly a surprise. By contrast, Simone Inzaghi’s Inter made the most of a favourable draw to catch everyone unawares.
The Nerazzurri slogged past Porto 1-0 on aggregate in the Round of 16 before seeing off their fellow Portuguese heavyweights Benfica in more freewheeling fashion.
It set up a semifinal showdown for the ages between Inter and their fierce rivals AC Milan. Inter thrived amid the caldron of the San Siro — the iconic home stadium that the Milan clubs share — as Edin Dzeko and Henrikh Mkhitaryan sent them racing into a 2-0 lead inside 11 minutes.
Inter prevailed 1-0 in the second leg to book their date with destiny in Istanbul.
Read more at: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soccer/news/who-won-2023-uefa-champions-league-final-man-city-inter-milan/9c69090eeeb8922d2788f2dc