Ragtag band of Inter Milan veterans out to ambush Man City in Champions League final

A few years back, when David Beckham was preparing to move his career upstairs, from ex-playing legend to club owner, he was hit with a lawsuit.

Inter Miami, the start-up project aiming to join the American MLS, were being pursued by Internazionale, or Inter Milan as they are often known, for trademark infringement. There was only one real “Inter” in football, the Italians claimed, and the name should be exclusively theirs.

That wrangle still rumbles on and, as Italy’s Inter prepare for their most important, high-profile fixture for 13 years, tomorrow’s Champions League final against Manchester City, they may now wonder if they can still claim to be the most famous Inter in the sport.

Lionel Messi’s announcement this week he will be joining Inter Miami has boosted the MLS institution as almost nothing else could.

Time was when Inter of Serie A used to be linked with signing Messi, back in his peak years with Barcelona.

Those stories were based mostly on wishful thinking in Milan. But there were times in the past 15 years when Inter might have found the budget for the scale of bid needed to sign the world’s very finest footballers.

Those times are now past. The Inter who line up in Istanbul represent a triumph of pragmatism in austerity.

Their manager Simone Inzaghi, who took on the role in 2021 after Antonio Conte left complaining about the restricted budget, knows it whenever he studies his line-up.

In Istanbul he will make his key decision on who to start at centre-forward between a 37-year-old who came in on a free transfer, Edin Dzeko, and Romelu Lukaku, who belongs to Chelsea and is only back for his second spell at Inter on loan because his €120 million move to London had turned sour.

Inter Milan's Romelu Lukaku