JABAR EKSPRES – When Erling Halland scored five of Manchester City seven goals against RB Leipzig in mid-March, the club’s website ran the headline “City in seventh heaven to ensure Champions League progress”.
Two months later, the same page again lowered the title by loading the words “seventh heaven” ahead of the FA Cup final against Manchester United. At that time they were in an atmosphere of ecstasy because they had won the Premier League title.
The league title itself became a historic record because it made them the team that won the Premier League three times in a row or the second in the Premier League era after Manchester United.
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Manchester City then won the FA Cup which made them get two titles in one season, and at the same time strengthened their hopes of winning the treble to again rival the Red Devils’ achievements in 1999.
A week after the FA Cup final, they realized that dream by beating Inter Milan in the Champions League final on Sunday morning.
Installing three defenders in a 3-2-4-1 formation with Erling Haaland as the lone spearhead, City struggled to penetrate the tight but also occasionally explosive game that Inter organized in a 3-5-2 formation.
Inter successfully shut down the two wings and two central midfielders who had been the motor of City’s attack.
Bernardo Silva on the right and Jack Grealish on the left, no longer as free as usual. They were tamed respectively by left-back Federico Dimarco and right-back Denzel Dumfries who were placed in line with the three midfielders.
Meanwhile, the midfield trio Nicola Barella, Marcelo Brozovic, and Hakan Calhanoglu, managed to damage the heart of City’s creativity carried by Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin de Bruyne, who could not play long due to injury.
