The summit was reached shortly before midnight, as one day ended and another began. It did not arrive as Manchester City had dreamed, the imaginary climax of some spectacular, wide movement, but in an earthier, more human way: a slight slip, no more than a technical foul, was promptly opened and punished.
The effect was the same. A decade and a half after the lightning strike was bought by City by an investment firm decidedly unrelated to the Abu Dhabi government, the most ambitious project football has ever seen has been completed thanks to one quick surefire strike. Rodri’s right foot.
Manchester City has already won the Premier League and the FA Cup this season. Now he is also the European champion. The one trophy that had eluded her for so long, the one that both the club’s benefactors and coach, Pep Guardiola, coveted more than any other, was finally captured with a 1-0 win over Inter Milan.
Perhaps, given the scale of the investment – and the constant suggestion that City may not have been playing to quite the same rules as everyone else – this was unavoidable. Odds were that this would happen sooner or later. But it had to happen for City to win the treble, making them only the second English team to achieve the feat, was the perfect gift wrapping.
In years to come, of course, the manner in which this was achieved will be completely forgotten. It would have slipped from City’s minds as soon as the whistle sounded and the players erupted with joy, a great roar flowing from the ranks of the packed crowd. It was not, to be sure, a memorable final, or – by City’s own lofty standards – a noteworthy performance.
But it was a perfect fit. Inter Milan arrived in Istanbul expecting to be little more than a sacrificial lamb, casually beaten aside by a city side that seemed, in every conceivable way, to be superior to it.
City have won the Premier League in five of the last six years. Inter is the third best team in Italy. City have Erling Haaland, a striker who appears to have been sent in from the future. The Inter team is old, even by the aging standards of Serie A. This final was, by most accounts, a mismatch, a procession, a fait accompli.
It didn’t work out like that. Inter drew on their deep experience to frustrate City in every way imaginable. He slowed down on free kicks. remained in possession. He indulged in trivial errors, robbing the game of its rhythm. Francesco Acerbe, a richly bearded central defender, pushed and pulled Haaland as soon as the ball was in his orbit.
What the Italian side may lack in star power, in methodical development, it more than makes up for in grit and grayness, in gnarl and nous. These are all virtues in football, of course, the building blocks of all great teams.
In the end, though, it wasn’t enough. In an instant, the resistance of Inter broke out, and with it the last bastion of the traditional aristocracy of European football, its great old homes. Manchester City, as they always did, smashed the door. In the middle of its festivities one day ended, and another began.
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