We come to the occasion that many will regard as the pinnacle of this footballing season, although in years to come we may remember that Champions League final for one team’s dominance . There is a real possibility that Manchester City will win the match at half-time.
I see the game against Inter in Istanbul might be easier for City than last Saturday’s FA Cup final against Manchester United, which wasn’t exactly a struggle for them.
I envision City creating the most chances and having the vast majority of possession. I said several weeks ago in these pages that I believe winning this trophy is City’s destiny. Nothing has happened since to dissuade me.
My own experience in finals like this with Liverpool tells me that maintaining as much of a sense of normalcy as possible will help City.
We have won three European Cups in six years, and my first final was against Brugge at Wembley in May 1978, four months after I joined Liverpool. I was lucky to have joined a team of serial winners, the reigning European champions, whose approach that night was, “It’s just another game. Of course we will win.
The key to my success in the European Cup with Liverpool was to treat the final like any other game.
When we won in Rome in 1984, we flew the same way we always had and even skipped an extra press conference on landing.
If Man City can foster the same sense of normalcy for such a big game, they beat Inter Milan before half-time.
There was no “Let’s go to London early”. We eat different foods. Let’s go to another hotel, let’s sleep in another bed with strange pillows.
The Liverpool coaching staff kept it all extremely low key and it felt like we were playing any other league game at Spurs, Arsenal or West Ham. We traveled on Friday: a train from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston, where a bus was waiting for us.
We stayed at the Hertfordshire hotel that we often use, Sopwell House. It wasn’t until we came out at Wembley that it became something more than just a game of football. Of course, Wembley was a much more special occasion back then. A place reserved only for the finals.
There was the same air of normality when we played against AS Roma in their own city six years later. We flew in from Speke airport on Tuesday morning, on an Aer Lingus jet as always, and arrived to find they had a press conference scheduled at Rome airport. Joe Fagan, our manager, ignored this and we went straight to our hotel.
In the locker room, half an hour before kick-off in Rome, Alan Hansen told one of his stories and had us overtake, as usual. Big Al might tell you a story today, tell you the same tomorrow with a few different details, and still make you laugh. He was the memory man and had an incredible recall of detail. I remember Fagan coming over and saying to us, “By the way, you know we’re playing a game of f*****g in half an hour?”
Joe had given his speech—as it was—that lunchtime at our hotel, an hour’s drive from the stadium. We were having lunch when he got up, tapped a drink and asked the hotel staff to leave us. We all wondered what he was going to say, as he stared at the ceiling and searched for a few words. “Great game tonight,” he finally said, seeking reinforcement from Ronnie Moran.
Man City may find their European final easier than their FA Cup win over United last weekend
Even if the Italian side can silence Erling Haaland, people like Ilkay Gundogan will simply appear elsewhere
I expect one or more of these City players to go down in Champions League history, and I just don’t see them getting beaten.
“It must be a good team. They won their championship last year. They have some good Brazilians and several Italian World Cup winners…and by the way, the bus leaves at 5:30 p.m. Joe reassured himself, more than anything. But it gave us all a huge conviction.
We felt exactly the same playing Roma in their own stadium, where we won on penalties, as playing Brugge in front of 90,000 of our own fans at Wembley, where we won 1-0. I think that says a lot about our mindset.
Where City may differ from us is in the importance they attach to this trophy. For us, the priority has always been the league, because at Liverpool they always thought that was the one that said the most about you as a player and as a team. Dealing with disappointments for nine grueling months. But this City side have now won five of six titles. They parked this bus. Winning a first Champions League is essential to how history will see them.
In some ways, our Brugge game mirrored what we can expect at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium. Just like City on Saturday, we were the strongest team by far and a team everyone feared at the time. Inter is to this match what Bruges was to that one. I don’t think they’re the kind of Italian team we’ve seen historically, who can sit back, defend and threaten on the counterattack.
City have the firepower to create plenty of chances. I expect the margin to be wider than ours in 1978 when we won 1-0.
Coming back to this – City don’t just rely on Erling Haaland to score goals. As I thought a few weeks ago before the semi-final second leg of Real Madrid, playing this City team is a bit of a challenge for Peter, the lock keeper’s son, who put his finger in the dike , in the Dutch fable. The water just comes out somewhere else. Keep Haaland quiet and another problem will arise: Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin de Bruyne or someone else.
I expect one or more City players to write themselves in history now, and it could very well be the start of a prolonged period of Champions League dominance for the club. It’s their time. I just can’t see them getting beaten.
No flag planting for me on the return from Galatasaray!
I returned to my former club Galatasaray in Istanbul last weekend and received a flag reminiscent of the one I planted in Fernerbache all those years ago
I was treated to a reminder of the unique experience of Turkish football last weekend, when I was invited to Istanbul by my former club Galatasaray, who won the national title, for their match against Fenerbahce and that ‘I was asked to enter the field with a huge flag. .
The last time I handled an object of this size in the city, I planted it in the center circle of the Fenerbahçe pitch after my Galatasaray team won the Turkish Cup. It was my response to one of their vice presidents, who called me crippled because I had had heart surgery.
I did not repeat the gesture this time. This flag has only been planted once. It will only be planted once. And things weren’t so spontaneous this time around. I had to carry the flag around a huge stage in the middle of the pitch after Galatasaray won 3-0.
But when my former director of football Adnan Polat presented me with a commemorative plaque, he told me that the fans were calling me.
So I headed home for the ceremony where you do a shhh gesture, and everything calms down, before you wave at them three times and everything goes wild. What a phenomenal football city.
There will be atmosphere this weekend.
I am halfway to the £1.1million charity fundraising target we have set for my relay race in the English Channel later this month.
Raised over half of my £1.1m fundraising target for my Channel swim
I was touched and extremely grateful to see a well-known football personality add £3,000 to the pot. Contributions large and small all help.
We raise money to fund vital research to help people with epidermolysis bullosa, a life-threatening skin condition also known as ‘butterfly skin’, which causes skin to blister and tear.
Please support the cause if you can. It would mean the world to me. Every penny raised will contribute to the fight to relieve children suffering from this horrible disease.
You can donate through this link.
