The Champions League final – the size of its glory, the notion of historicity – can be measured in Erling Halland’s tears of happiness, but also in Lautaro’s tears of sadness. The one who wins and the one who loses. The Olympus or frustration. It can be measured in the satisfaction of Guardiola, the short pique to embrace his players, with his coaching staff and with whoever put him in front, and in the rigidity of Lukaku, haunted by a curse that lasted throughout the World Cup in Qatar and that it spread yesterday, during the time he played at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium, in the great Istanbul.
In the first official game they played in their entire history, Manchester City beat Inter because of a delicacy from Spanish Rodri, who passed, in just one movement of his instep and hip, second guitar in a team full of stars, the protagonist of the most important night in the history of that club, with a working-class background and a present quite far from that.
The money that the Abu Dhabi United Group has contributed since 2008 was a turning point for City. Although the other is the one given to him by Pep Guardiola, who has just won the third Champions League in his career as a coach, after the two he won with Barcelona. “If we win it then they will say it was because we had a lot of money, and later they will say something else, and so on. It is so. This is so,” Pep said in an interview with Gol. It’s like this: City is much more than money. And if there is a concept, it is because Guardiola brings it to him.
After a failed first attempt against Chelsea in the final of the 2020/2021 edition, City won their first Champions League in 129 years of history. It is his second continental title: in the 1969/70 season he had won the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
But it is worth more, in the words of the coach, for the “triple”. For having won, for the first time in its history, the Premier League, the FA Cup and now the highest continental trophy.
Julian. Although he followed the entire game from the substitute bench, Julián Álvarez defined his first season at City as “incredible and magnificent”. “I learned a lot, I grew a lot as a player and as a person. It was magnificent, incredible, everything happened in a very short time, ”he commented to the ESPN channel during the celebrations in Turkey.
“It was a great challenge to come to another country, from another football, but everything happened very quickly personally. Luckily we ended as we all wanted”, pointed out the world champion striker. Julián added three goals and two assists in ten appearances throughout the tournament.