Stronger than the best – Kommersant

The current Champions League draw will crown the match in which Inter and Manchester City will meet in Istanbul on June 10. And the English club will reach the final, it seems, in some absolutely unprecedented status from the point of view of any observer – not even a favorite, but almost an accomplished winner. Just from the impressions caused by the spring Manchester performances and especially the second leg of the semi-final of the main European Cup, in which Manchester destroyed – 4-0 – last year’s victorious Real Madrid, it will be insanely difficult to get rid of.

In the hours following the end of the Manchester semi-final, it seemed to be a mandatory program for any more or less major European publication to publish weighty collections of opinions on the game of its hosts. Opinions of ordinary fans and serious football analysts. Quite short, sometimes from one word like “Divine!” or “Amazing!”, and deployed, trying to explain the essence of what happened, but instead of sensible and tedious reasoning, they quickly slide, in fact, all to the same lyrics. About the perfectionist coach Pep Guardiola, who for seven years sculpted from Manchester City an ideal club in structure, like an Egyptian pyramid, and now, it seems, he finally sculpted it. About 11 football players on the field, as if connected by a neural network: they think the same way and feel each other from a distance. About their individual talents tightly woven into the fabric of the team, which do not dissolve in the fabric, do not fade, but, on the contrary, bloom with bright colors. About the irresistibility of Erling Haaland. About the ability to appear in a dangerous area as an evil and cunning devil from a snuffbox Bernardo Silva. About the dynamism of Kevin De Bruyne. About 35 scoring chances created by Jack Grealish in this Champions League. About the amazing reading of other people’s attacks by John Stones and Kyle Walker. About the impossible combination of qualities that Manchester City showed in the return semi-final – from class and passion, from speed and prudence, from power and greed in the best sense of the word. Well, after all, everything was decided by an explosion in the first half, which resulted in Silva’s double and provided the Manchester team with a two-goal advantage, but hunger, the desire to tear apart the Spanish giant did not disappear in the second half.

These lyrics gave birth to usually restrained people, trying to hide their emotions deeper, such bold statements, which are rarely dared. And let’s say Guillem Balague, considered almost the leading specialist in Spanish football, did not hesitate to include this Manchester performance in his BBC column in the top ten football performances of all time. However, the former England striker Chris Sutton managed to outdo him, saying that if Manchester City keep their form, then the winner of the Istanbul final is obvious – there are no options, no intrigue. And, by the way, there was no heated debate on this issue.

In the history of the Champions League, there have already been three dozen final matches. And far from all met absolutely equal in status – in general or at this particular moment – rivals. The division into a favorite and an outsider was both conditional, blurry, and extremely clear. But in any case, such a situation as in 2023, apparently, has not yet arisen.

Before the Champions League finals, there were always good reasons to doubt the favorite and believe in the outsider, as, for example, in the final two years ago, in which Manchester City, for the first time, got close to the most valuable of the club’s prizes, met with the survivors of a difficult, ups and downs , with coaching changes, the Chelsea season and, being, strictly speaking, stronger, if strength is measured primarily by stability, results at a distance, nevertheless lost to the Londoners who added when it was most needed.

But where to get these reasons now? Manchester City have been playing in some kind of exceptional regime all spring since March, one that places them in a completely separate niche – in football space. He does not suffer defeat. In the key match of the English championship, he takes out – 4: 1 – who managed to get used to the leadership of Arsenal. In the play-offs of the Champions League, he smashes – 7:0 – the rebounding Leipzig and – 4:1 – the terrible Bayern. And his home game with Real Madrid looks like the final confirmation of exclusivity due to the specific properties of the enemy, which helped him so much in the previous draw, including in the semi-final confrontation with the English flagship, and which the Madrid seem to have kept intact and intact along with everyone its heroes – Karim Benzema, Vinicius, Luka Modric, Thibault Courtois, Tony Kros – vitality, the gift to break the game. This time they were of no use, since Manchester City 2022 and Manchester City 2023 are different in terms of team height.

And from the feeling that since even the impenetrable “Real” was powerless in front of the new, “pumped” to the limit by Manchester, then the completely earthly “Inter”, which, on the way to Istanbul, did not need magic, but victories over “Porto”, “Benfica” and Milan, there is absolutely nothing to catch in the final, in the next three weeks there will be nowhere to go. Both amateurs and connoisseurs, equally admiring Manchester perfection, will have to put up with it. Which, however, does not cancel the version that on the evening of June 10 they will have to put up with the fact that in reality everything is not as simple and obvious as it seemed after the beating organized by Manchester City against Real Madrid. Feelings in football are as shaky, unreliable, and controversial as the top ten performances in history.

Alexey Dospekhov