Simone Inzaghi did not want to go into detail. All Inter Milan’s coach was prepared to say, on the eve of the Champions League final, was that his team had a “special idea” on how to deal with Erling Haaland. So far this season, Haaland has scored 52 goals in 52 games for Manchester City. He has scored against every opponent he has faced at least twice. Inzaghi’s “special idea,” one might think, may have to involve an actual siege engine.
That, certainly, has been the feeling ever since it was confirmed that it would be Inter — the third-best team in Italy this season, and that league’s oldest squad — that would stand in the way of Manchester City and the Champions League trophy that was, essentially, an inevitability from the moment the club came under the aegis of Abu Dhabi 15 years ago.
It is not that Inter is a bad team. It is not. It was champion of Italy only two years ago. It has already seen off not just A.C. Milan but both Benfica and F.C. Porto in the Champions League this season. It emerged from a group containing both Bayern Munich and Barcelona. It has a redoubtable, intelligent defense, a combative midfield, and at least three genuine goal-scoring threats.
It also has an abundance of experience: gritty, grizzled performers like Francesco Acerbi, Marcelo Brozovic and Edin Dzeko, players who will not be cowed by the scale of the occasion at Istanbul’s Olympic Stadium. Inter has some momentum, too: It has won 11 of its last 12 games. And Inzaghi is a fine coach, one with a reputation for particular expertise in knockout games.
The problem is that none of that looks like it will be nearly enough to overcome City, a team that has been untouchable in the Premier League, the F.A. Cup and the Champions League since February, a team that has ranked, effectively, as the best side in the world for half a decade or so.
It might be that Inter, military hardware or not, can stop Haaland. The chances that it can also stop Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva, though, are slim.
But no final is a foregone conclusion. City has lost to Brentford this season — twice — and so it is certainly possible that it might lose to Inter Milan. Should Inter hold firm for an hour or more, the equation of the game might shift just a little in its favor.
“We must not think we are losing at 0-0,” Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola said yesterday. “We are not. Italian teams always think they are winning at 0-0. They are not.” That is true, but it hits upon a relevant truth: The longer the game remains in the balance, the more the field is leveled.
Inter cannot match City for skill, or talent, or system; the financial differences between the teams ensure that. Inzaghi will believe — because he has to believe — that there is no reason that it cannot match City for nerve.
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