You can say a lot about Manchester City since Sheikh Mansour’s 2008 takeover but one thing you certainly can’t say is that he and his club haven’t been ambitious.
The scale of that ambition has been evident right from the beginning. After taking over a club that finished the 2007/08 season in ninth place, securing UEFA Cup qualification thanks to their domestic fair play ranking — a feat that then-manager Sven-Göran Eriksson described as: “a dream come true”, the new City regime made waves across the footballing landscape by signing Robinho for a reported £32.5m, setting a British transfer record in the process.
The entire atmosphere around the club immediately changed. No longer was UEFA Cup qualification thanks to their fair play record considered the pinnacle. Robinho’s compatriot, Jo — who was also signed in the summer of 2008 — declared just months after Eriksson’s aforementioned comments that in no uncertain terms: “This club will win the Premier League”. And they did in 2011/12.
In 2009, Eriksson’s successor Mark Hughes made it publicly clear what the expectations were for him, stating: “I expect us to be challenging for the Champions League”, and a decade after his takeover, with three Premier League titles, three League Cups and an FA Cup to show for their contribution to the club, the determined investor announced: “We are only halfway up our Everest” — drawing attention to that elusive European Cup that had remained just out of their reach. Until Saturday night, that is.
It took just under 15 years, but Sheikh Mansour’s project has finally delivered the trophy he’s clearly coveted the most since investing in the blue part of Manchester — the UEFA Champions League. No longer do City need to be concerned about their fair play record in the hope it delivers European football.
On the contrary, their Financial Fair Play record and the 115 pending charges against them loom as an elephant in any room praising the team’s achievement.
Nevertheless, this analysis won’t delve into the club’s accounts; were not the guys who can tell you much about that side of things. This will be a tactical analysis of Manchester City’s 1-0 UEFA Champions League final win over Internazionale.
The losing side were the reigning Serie A Champions in 2008 under Roberto Mancini when City’s takeover occurred, remained Italy’s top dogs in the following two years under José Mourinho, completing a famous treble in 2010, but fell down the pecking order for much of the 2010s when City rose to prominence in their respective domestic league.
It took until 2020/21, under Antonio Conte, for Inter to return to the summit of Italy’s top flight, where Simone Inzaghi has largely kept them fighting for the past couple of seasons, achieving a second-place finish in 2021/22 and a third-place finish in 2022/23, with the promising 47-year-old coach delivering two Coppa Italia trophies and two Supercoppa Italiana triumphs for I Nerazzurri.
The Lazio legend had a seven-win streak in finals as a manager heading into Saturday’s clash with City that has now been broken. But a 1-0 loss to Pep Guardiola’s major money machine is hardly something to be ashamed of.
In fact, given that Inter’s squad (€534.45m) is valued at just over half of what City’s squad is valued (€1.05bn) according to Transfermarkt, the fact that Saturday’s final was a very even game, for the most part, is something of a feather in Inzaghi’s cap. He, his coaching staff and his players can hold their heads up high after their performance in a game where they were universally considered heavy underdogs.
This tactical analysis piece will provide an analysis of the tactics and strategy employed by both teams in Saturday’s fixture to shine a light on how the game played out and why. We’ll analyse key aspects of both teams’ respective approaches, looking at both teams in possession and how their opponent set up against their offensive methods, before going on to compare the two teams’ defensive styles in detail. Strap in and, hopefully, enjoy the ride as we attempt to tactically dissect this game.
Lineups
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we need to take a look at the two teams’ lineups for this game (see figure 1).
Starting with the eventual winners, City started with Ederson Moraes in goal, while Manuel Akanji (right) Rúben Dias (centre) and Nathan Aké (left) were the three centre-backs deployed just in front of him.
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