Kevin De Bruyne’s wife, Michèle Lacroix, was not worried. She knew that Manchester City would beat Internazionale on Saturday night to win their first Champions League title. She was convinced it was their destiny. She has been all season.
“I don’t know why my wife said in August: ‘You’re going to win the Champions League,’ but she always maintained I would,” De Bruyne said. “She said before the game: ‘You’ll be fine, you’ll win it.’ In the end, it’s a little bit of a shame because I have to tell her she was right. So that’s not the best.”
It did not go as De Bruyne had dreamed it on a personal level. The midfielder has managed a hamstring problem since the quarter-final second leg at Bayern Munich on 19 April. In the red zone with minor tears, he was told there was a danger it could go completely, which it did, forcing him off in the 36th minute.
De Bruyne had been strong‑armed out of City’s only previous Champions League final against Chelsea in 2021, Antonio Rüdiger’s notorious upper body check leaving him with a broken nose, fractured eye socket and concussion. So a treble of sorts. De Bruyne will have a scan but he knows that grade three hamstring tears mean up to three months out. This is what can happen when you push your body through 57 games for club and country over a punishing season.
As heads cleared after City’s 1-0 win, Inter broken by Rodri’s 68th-minute goal and Ederson’s resistance at the end, it felt as though there was something in the notion of destiny. An hour or so after the final whistle, as Pep Guardiola waited for a lift in the bowels of the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in between media commitments, gold winners’ medal around his neck, he could not help but stare at a nearby TV. It was showing the replays of Romelu Lukaku’s 89th-minute header, the one that the Inter substitute had met unmarked at close range. And he still put it too close to Ederson, who blocked with his legs, Rúben Dias completing the clearance.
“Can you believe Lukaku has not scored that?” Guardiola was asked. It was unclear whether he heard the question. The City manager simply blew out his cheeks and turned towards the lift, a posse of luminous-bibbed stewards holding up their camera phones for selfies, Guardiola in the background as the doors closed.
The excellent Federico Dimarco looped a header against the crossbar on 71 minutes and Ederson tipped over another header, this one from the substitute Robin Gosens, at the very last. But Lukaku’s header felt like the moment for Inter.
On another day, it goes in. Or maybe it rebounds off Dias and goes in. Not this time. City’s triumph felt like the counterpoint to their undeserved semi-final defeat to Real Madrid last season. Or the agony of the VAR-dictated exit against Tottenham in the 2019 quarter-final. The 2021 final was a part of it, too.
Manuel Akanji claimed John Stones played like Diego Maradona after Manchester City won the Champions League and completed the treble.
The England international has enjoyed a fine end to the season having been deployed in a new roving role by manager Pep Guardiola.
The centre-back retains his usual defensive duties when City are on the back foot but, given their tendency to dominate possession, he now has licence to step into midfield and dictate play more.
Defender Akanji said: "The way he dribbled, he played like Maradona. He just took the ball, went past three people, passed it somewhere else. He created a lot of opportunities for us. He is an unbelievable player." PA Media
City were not their usual selves against Inter, especially in the first half when they lacked aggression and Rodri could get nothing going. Their opponents played above themselves, Simone Inzaghi getting his tactics spot on. City had gears to move up and into but they did not really do so. Then again, Champions League finals that clinch trebles are not to be played, they are to be won, as some other mob could tell them.
“It was written in the stars,” Guardiola said or, certainly, in City’s muscle memory. There were colourful scenes afterwards, in the dressing room and into the mixed zone, the area through which players and staff walk in front of the media before boarding the team bus. You heard Jack Grealish before you saw him, the winger striding through with Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere blaring from a boom box.
Erling Haaland pretended to snore as he waited for Rodri to finish an interview; the centre-forward was next and then he was not because he did not want to wait any longer. John Stones wandered through with a Heineken. Would he stop for a chat? “Guys, I’ve not had a beer for 11 months!” he replied. In other words, let me have this moment. Kyle Walker smiled broadly. “I just want to say: ‘Thank you,’” he offered, with a flourish.
For the City support in Istanbul, there are memories that will never die, the chaotic nature of the place somehow amplifying them. After Liverpool’s 2005 triumph here, fans experienced 10-hour delays at Sabiha Gokcen airport and it reached a point where a ticket to any airport in England was enough; flights were boarded like buses. Manchester, London, it did not matter. The authorities almost lost control, their only soothing move to play You’ll Never Walk Alone over the public address system.
It was not that bad for City’s followers, although the schlep in and out of the Ataturk stadium by road was a test. This is Istanbul, a city where the traffic is a nightmare and a marvel, where seat belts in the back of high-speed, quick-breaking taxis appear as optional as motorcycle helmets, and where two cars into one lane somehow go.
De Bruyne epitomised the all-for-one spirit, giving everything he had to drive the journey to its end point. There were times after his substitution when it looked as though he was the assistant manager on the touchline.
“I’ve been struggling with the injury since Bayern Munich away,” De Bruyne said. “It was all small ruptures but here I snapped it all the way. I’ve been told for two months there’s a possibility I was at risk but, you know, you take it.
“I was there for my team and did what I needed to do. I missed some games but the games like Arsenal, Bayern and Madrid … I managed to do it. I had some personal things that happened with my family on top of that and I managed that. It’s a shame it went the way it did for me but we go away winning the Champions League so there’s nothing bad towards it.”
