Some are ‘swimming’ in cash, and others are drowning in debt. Some paid what was needed to be among the best and didn’t even look at the bill, while others ‘patched’ themselves up just to survive and remain in the company of the rich. And yet again, in the last European game of the 2022/23 season, they faced each other. Manchester City vs Inter. The undisputed ruler of the strongest and most financially powerful league in the world against the third-placed team in the championship, which has not been at its peak for a long time. David vs Goliath or, in the specific case Inter vs football probability.So, who’s taking it home? 🥰#UCLfinal pic.twitter.com/plSydnh52c— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) June 10, 2023 City has already brought two trophies at the Etihad this season, and everybody is waiting for the third. Having won the Premier League for the fifth time in the last six seasons and the FA Cup a week ago, Manchester City headed to Turkey to complete the treble. On their way to history Inter, the three-time winner of the Champions League, will try to stop them. A club which many believed to be in Istanbul by mistake. The final of the Champions League should be a clash between the two best teams in Europe, but mostly it is not. In fact, this is rarely the case. However, the impression is that football does not remember the bigger difference between the two teams in the match for the most prestigious club trophy. At least not, since that competition is played under its current name. It was Leverkusen against Real at the beginning of the century, it also happened that a team like Monaco somehow managed to get into the final. Jamie Carragher himself told how Istanbul’s Liverpool was worse than the one that won the UEFA Cup against Alaves four years earlier, Tottenham also sneaked into the Madrid final four years ago, but no one was a bigger outsider than Inter.No goals – no stressAnd it’s not (only) Inter’s fault. It would be the same if the city rival Milan or the Portuguese giants Porto and Benfica, who were eliminated by the Nerazzurri in the round of 16 or the quarter-finals, were in the final. The draw divided the teams after the group stage and made two absolutely uneven groups, in which all favourites were put on the same side, allowing weaker teams to reach the final relatively easily. And finally, there is the Manchester City factor. Apart from PSG, the Citizens are a team with the most desire to win this competition. With no such a big history behind them before being purchased by the Arab owners, both clubs are chasing this trophy with unparalleled obsession, spending all the money in the world just to get this trophy and go into world history. So, truth to be told, whoever went to today’s final with City would be automatically doomed as ‘outsiders’, but Inter are really that.Inter have won the European Cup/Champions League three times — and on all three occasions their victory has ended another team’s bid to win the treble:🇪🇸 1964: Beat Real Madrid🇵🇹 1965: Beat Benfica🇩🇪 2010: Beat Bayern Munich pic.twitter.com/CPtXsfz6kT— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) June 9, 2023 Nerazzurri have nothing to lose. It would be fair to say that even their own fans didn’t project their club in the finals, maybe in the elimination phase. Last season they finished their participation in the round of 16, three consecutive seasons before that, they finished already in the group stage… When they drew Bayern and Barcelona, the Milan team couldn’t help but think that the same scenario would repeat itself this year. Because while the Catalan giant squandered money it didn’t have, Inter went through another turbulent transfer window last summer and was looking at how to make ends meet. The Chinese Sunin, led by Stephen Zhang, brought Inter back to the top of Italian football over time. Two seasons ago, after more than a decade, they brought the Scudetto to the showcases, two Cup and Super Cup trophies each in the previous two years, and restored the status of a regular participant of the Champions League, but the return (albeit not yet complete) to the paths of old glory had its price.Onana to City: ‘Show you are the best’Due to the impact of the coronavirus, due to the decreasing investment of the Chinese state in European football and, above all, Suning’s personal problems, Inter became the club with the largest debts in Italy, and according to the latest published accounts, its deficit amounts to over 850,000,000 euros. In the previous two seasons alone, the club recorded a minus of around 400,000,000 euros… Consequently, the Nerazzurri have been on a strict ‘diet’ in recent years, trying to stay in the heavyweight division while losing weight simultaneously. Aware that he would not be able to upgrade the team with which he won the Scudetto, Antonio Conte left the club after lifting it. Inter was forced to sell Romelu Lukaku and Ashraf Hakimi, then they lost Ivan Perisic without compensation. Former captain Milan Skriniar will follow after the season and very likely Stefan de Vrij. And the team that brought Inter to the first final of the Champions League after 13 years was scraped together. Inter spent about 120,000,000 euros on the eleven players, which, according to the Italian media, should start tonight, and City gave 100 million of that money only on Jack Grealish.UEFA Champions League final be like ! 👀 pic.twitter.com/fMBLKJDgqz— Troll Football (@Troll_Fotballl) June 10, 2023 In previous years, City was assigned the favourite role to win the Champions League due to the enormous money put in and due to the Pep Guardiola factor, but for various reasons, they were short every single time. Sometimes they just didn’t have any luck, sometimes, they were a bit inexperienced, and sometimes, Pep Guardiola was just thinking too much. This time, he didn’t have to. In Erling Haaland, City got the man they needed this summer, a man who participates less in the game but scores on a regular basis. There is also Kevin De Bruyne to assist and score some wonder goals, Gundogan turned into Zinedine Zidane when needed, as Kyle Walker recently vividly described it, and Rodrigo is holding the midfield under his grip. There is no doubt that Guardiola will be overcome with emotion if his team passes the test at Ataturk. There will probably be tears, more than there were after the FA Cup final. But more than anything else, the Spaniard will feel relieved. Relief because he finally accomplished the mission in which the club previously invested over a billion euros. For twelve years, Guardiola has been waiting to get his hands on the most valuable trophy in club football again. Twelve years… Too long for a coach of Guardiola’s reputation, especially if we take into account the fact that he lifted the trophy twice in the first four attempts. With this win, City would join the company of only seven clubs that in the history of clubs managed to combine the title of national champion, the national cup trophies and the cup of the best team in Europe in one season. There’s a lot on the cards for City this evening at the Ataturk…UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUEFinalSaturday22.00: (1.50) Man.City (4.40) Inter (7.50)
