Man City and Inter target Champions League glory in Istanbul final

ISTANBUL, Turkiye: Manchester City are hoping to get their hands on the Champions League trophy at last, and complete a historic treble, when Pep Guardiola’s team face outsiders Inter Milan in Saturday’s final in Istanbul.

City have been building toward winning Europe’s elite club competition since the Abu Dhabi-backed takeover of 2008 which transformed them and helped reshape the sport on the continent. They came agonizingly close to Champions League glory in 2021, losing narrowly to Chelsea in the final, before being denied in last year’s semifinals by a remarkable Real Madrid comeback. Having exacted revenge on Madrid, the holders, in this season’s last four with a 5-1 aggregate triumph, they are now expected to complete the job at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium. “We have all been working for this for a long time,” City goalkeeper Ederson, at the club since 2017, said this week. “The whole team have seen a lot of victories but also defeats as well. The players who have been here for five or six years who have seen these sorts of defeats, we have learnt from them so that helps us to grow as a team.”

A victory for City will see them complete the treble after they claimed a fifth Premier League title in six seasons and then lifted the FA Cup last weekend, beating Manchester United 2-1 in the final. United were the last English club to achieve the treble, in 1999. Ilkay Gundogan was City’s goal hero in the FA Cup final, as Erling Haaland drew a rare blank, but the Norwegian has scored 52 times for his club this season. His goals appear to have taken City to another level, and Guardiola seems poised to finally win a third Champions League, 12 years after claiming a second in three seasons with Barcelona. “If we want to