Champions League final: Key stats ahead of Manchester City v Inter Milan

Manchester City v Inter Milan preview: Crunching the numbers

With the Premier League title and FA Cup already in the bag, Manchester City and their manager Pep Guardiola are turning their attention towards completing a glorious treble.

City have little left to prove domestically, having won five Premier League titles, four League Cups and two FA Cups in the past six years, but the Champions League has so far remained elusive.

Guardiola acknowledged as much in Sunday’s title celebrations when he said: “We have the feeling we have done something exceptional in terms of the Premier League, but of course to be considered one of the greatest in Europe we have to win the Champions League. Otherwise people will say our time here is not complete.”

Ahead of City’s historic clash with Inter Milan on Saturday, we have crunched the numbers from the past three decades to work out where the final could be won and lost.

Who has the best recent pedigree?

Manchester City have cemented their status as a European superpower in the past decade, having reached the Champions League knockout stage in each of the past nine seasons.

Including their run to this year’s final, City have played the third highest number of matches in the competition since the start of the 2012-13 campaign (108), behind only Bayern Munich (120) and Real Madrid (129).

Guardiola’s side are yet to lift the trophy, however, with their most recent losses to Chelsea in the 2020-21 final and Real Madrid in last year’s semi-final proving especially painful.

Inter – by contrast – have spent much of the past 10 years in the continental wilderness. Despite having won the Champions League as recently as 2009-10, the Italian giants failed to qualify for the competition in six straight seasons between 2012-13 and 2017-18.

Their return to Europe’s big time in 2018-19 went more or less unnoticed, with the first of three successive group stage exits, while last year saw only a modest improvement in the form of a last-16 defeat by Liverpool.

How does Guardiola fare against Italian clubs?

City fans can take further confidence from the presence of Guardiola, who is increasingly building a case to be considered the greatest manager of the modern era.

The Spanish super-coach – twice a Champions League winner with Barcelona – boasts an excellent record in meetings with Italian clubs, having chalked up 10 wins, five draws and one defeat when pitted against Serie A sides.

However, the one loss was against Inter in their treble-winning campaign of 2009-10. Under the guidance of Jose Mourinho, the Nerazzurri managed to upset the odds by defeating Guardiola’s Barcelona – who were defending champions at the time – over two legs in the semi-final.

A 3-1 win at the San Siro proved sufficient to knock out the tournament favourites, as Barca huffed and puffed to a disappointing 1-0 victory over 10-man Inter in the return match. Mourinho’s men went on to overcome Bayern in the final for the club’s most recent Champions League triumph.

Do domestic performances matter?

A quick glance at the Premier League and Serie A tables suggests that City will cruise past Inter, with Guardiola’s side having already secured the title while their Italian counterparts are 20 points adrift of champions Napoli and yet to guarantee a top-four place.

That said, anything can happen in a one-off game. Since the European Cup rebranded as the Champions League in 1992-93, there have been 13 finals featuring a team that won their domestic league and a team that did not. Six of these were won by the latter side, compared with seven that went the way of the domestic champions.

Guardiola knows better than anyone that the final is not a foregone conclusion, having watched his side slump to a surprising defeat against Chelsea only two years ago. On that occasion, Premier League title winners City finished 19 points ahead of Chelsea, with Thomas Tuchel’s men having pipped Leicester to fourth place, but Guardiola’s team struggled in the final and lost out to a Kai Havertz goal.

Who are the main goal threats?

City have scored 31 goals and conceded just five on their way to the final, while Inter’s goal record reads 19 for and 10 against.

Looking across both squads, the top four players for goals and assists per game all play for the Premier League champions. The list is led by Erling Haaland, who has contributed 12 goals and one assist, ahead of Kevin De Bruyne, Julian Alvarez and Riyad Mahrez.

Joaquin Correa is the highest placed Inter player, despite being used mainly from the substitutes’ bench this season.

How often does the top scorer play for winning team?

Haaland is virtually guaranteed to finish as top scorer in the Champions League in 2022-23. The Norwegian’s tally of 12 goals is four more than anyone else and – with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah next on eight – the nearest challenger remaining in the competition is Inter’s Edin Dzeko on four.

Supposedly brought in to make the difference in Europe’s premier club competition, Haaland will become the first City player to top the Champions League scoring charts, which is increasingly a prerequisite for a team hoping to lift the trophy.

Seven of the last nine seasons have seen the tournament’s highest or joint-highest scorer play for the winning team. This is in stark contrast to the first 14 editions of the Champions League, during which it happened only once when Raul scored 10 goals for Real Madrid in 1999-2000.

Winning the Champions League and finishing as top scorer often leads to a player being awarded the Ballon d’Or at the end of the year. Karim Benzema achieved this hat-trick of accolades in 2022, as did Cristiano Ronaldo in 2014, 2016 and 2017, and Lionel Messi in 2015.

However, even if he were to be on the winning side in Istanbul, Haaland would probably have to settle for second place in the battle for the Ballon d’Or, following Messi’s fairytale World Cup win with Argentina.