Manchester City tasted Champions League glory at last on Saturday as a second-half volley from Spanish midfielder, Rodri gave the favourites a 1-0 hard-fought victory over Inter Milan in a tensed final, allowing Pep Guardiola’s side to complete a historic 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 star player Kevin De Bruyne to injury.
Erling Haaland, scorer of 52 goals this season, went a fifth straight match without finding the net, but City still had enough to edge out opponents who had never been expected to get this far in the first place.
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 play-off 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 football, two years after losing to Chelsea in their first final.
The match was watched by owner Sheikh Mansour, who made a very 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.
Twelve years after last lifting the trophy with Barcelona, meanwhile, Guardiola joins an elite club of coaches to have won the Champions League three times.
Yet having brushed aside RB Leipzig, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to reach the final, City did not have it easy against Inter, who saw Federico Dimarco and substitute Romelu Lukaku both almost equalise late on.
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.
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.
