Micah Richards left Jamie Carragher in stitches after admitting he got to know Edin Dzeko well thanks to spending "a lot of time on the bench" with him at Manchester City.
Ex-City striker Dzeko, 37, showed that he's aged like a fine wine by scoring a sublime opening goal for Inter in their Champions League semi-final clash with arch-rivals AC Milan on Wednesday. An emphatic effort three minutes later from fellow former Premier League star Henrikh Mkhitaryan gave Simone Inzaghi 's side an early 2-0 lead in the first leg which they never relinquished, putting Inter on course to reach the final against either City or Real Madrid.
Post-match, Dzeko was lauded by pundits across the globe for his everlasting class and ex-team-mate Richards knows him better than most. He and the Bosnia and Herzegovina international were often substitutes for the Citizens back in the early 2010s, a fact which Richards was forced to reference, as Carragher couldn't hide his amusement.
"Was he one of the people you really got to know at Manchester City? You were close with a lot of the foreign players," Carragher, on punditry for CBS Sports, asked Richards. The former City defender immediately replied: "Yeah, me and him spent a lot of time on the bench."
When Carragher burst out laughing, co-pundit Richards confessed: "I knew what was coming! I know you too well, Jamie." The Liverpool legend then joked: "We're that good on this show now he knows the punchlines!"
Before the hilarious exchange, Richards had praised Dzeko's personality and ability as a player. "He is brilliant, he's the nicest guy ever," the 34-year-old, who retired in 2019, began. "I went to go see him in Milan 18 months ago. We reminisced about the good times at Man City because, you know what it is, he's had it hard.
"He's had it hard because when people talk about Man City, everyone talks about [Sergio] Aguero, everyone loved [Mario] Balotelli, everyone loved [Carlos] Tevez, but Dzeko was always second fiddle."
"Remember in the big game, the last game of the season [against Queens Park Rangers in 2012 when City won their first ever Premier League title in dramatic fashion]. We had the Aguero moment but Dzeko equalised from a corner, scored an important goal for the team. He goes to Roma, everyone thought he was finished, he scored a lot of goals there and is still doing it at Inter."
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Dzeko was a perennial super sub for City but had already proven his worth by helping Wolfsburg win the Bundesliga title in Germany as their starting striker. In six years at Roma, the first being on loan, the Bosnian scored a superb 119 goals in 260 games before making the switch to Inter in the summer of 2021.
Since then, he's racked up an impressive 31 strikes in 96 appearances, only around half of those being starts. Boss Inzaghi was right to give him the nod on Wednesday, though, firing Inter in front with a volley from a corner and being the focal point of an attack which could easily have hurt AC Milan more. The two Italian giants will face each other once again at the San Siro next Tuesday for the second leg.
