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- Manchester City v Internazionale
- Saturday June 10, 2023, 15:00 EST
- At Ataturk Olimpyat
Manchester City has not yet won the Champions League, but Pep Guardiola’s Premier League-winning team can put that right on Saturday.
Who do Bettors Favor?
The best online sportsbooks show that Manchester City is the strong favorite with bettors going into this year’s Champions League final. The Premier League champion is rated as short as -225 with some betting sites, while the normal time draw is a +370 chance and Internazionale is priced at +580.
| UCL Final |  |  |  |
| Manchester City | -215 | -225 | -220 |
| Draw | +370 | +370 | +375 |
| Internazionale | +620 | +580 | +580 |
City Aiming for Treble
The English soccer treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League has only been achieved once, by Manchester United, in the 1998/99 season, but having beaten its city rivals in Saturday’s FA Cup final, City is now one win away from leveling the historical record.
While winning the treble would be a huge achievement, there is no question that for City, the Champions League is the most important of the three trophies. Although the club has been transformed in recent years, and is among the highest spending in the world, it has not yet been able to match those resources with the biggest prize in club soccer, and this remains the one trophy the club has never won.
For City manager Pep Guardiola too, this represents a significant challenge. Although widely regarded as one of the best in the business, the second of his two Champions League wins came back in 2011, when he was still at Barcelona. He failed in three attempts to win the trophy while at Bayern and when City reached the final in 2021, his tactical experiments were a significant factor in the defeat to Chelsea.
Inter Cannot be Overlooked
Internazionale goes into this game as the underdog, but the Italian giant cannot be overlooked. It finished third in Serie A, a long way off the pace set by Napoli, but it did claim the Coppa Italia and has had to get to the Champions League final the hard way.
It had to come through a tough Group that included both Barcelona and Bayern Munich, before grinding out contrasting wins against Porto and Benfica. In the semi-final, it was up against its old rival Milan, but came through that challenge with a 3-0 aggregate win.
It is worth noting that the club has a strong record in the Champions League/European Cup finals. Inter has reached the final on five occasions in its history and won it three times, with the latest victory coming in 2010 when the club defeated Bayern Munich to win a historic treble of its own.
UCL Final Head-to-Head
Manchester City and Internazionale have never met in a competitive match, which is relatively surprising, but the English team has played against other Italian clubs.
City has been drawn against Italian clubs on eight occasions, in either the Group stages or the knockout rounds of European competitions and the head-to-head record shows that the English team has won six of the 16 games, drawing another six and losing four.
Inter has spent a lot longer at the top level of European competition than City and since it played against Birmingham City in the Inter City Fairs Cup in 1956, it has played 38 times against English teams. Six of those games have been drawn, while Inter has a win-loss record of 15-17. Its most famous meeting with an English club came in 1965 when it beat Liverpool 4-3 on aggregate in the European Cup semi-final.
UCL Final Team News
There is some good team news for Inter this week as Federico Dimarco is set to be fit enough to start this game. The left-back did not feature in the weekend’s Serie A game against Torino due to muscle fatigue, but Simone Inzhagi has said that he will be available in Istanbul.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan is also likely to be back in the matchday squad for this game, though will likely be on the bench as Marcelo Brozovic starts in midfield, and Inzhagi also has a decision to make among the forwards, between Edin Dzeko and Romelu Lukaku.
For City, meanwhile, there is the rare luxury for Guardiola of being able to pick from a full squad. Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias, Kevin de Bruyne and Manuel Akanji had all been left out of the final Premier League match against Brentford, but all took part in the FA Cup final.
UCL Final Match Betting Pick
The memory of the 2021 Champions League final has lingered around City’s preparation for this game, but ultimately, it has the stronger team. Inter is not an easy opponent, but it doesn’t have anything like the range of attacking options that Guardiola can utilize, and, assuming that there are no tactical slip-ups from the City coach, the English team looks like a solid pick in the match betting market.
Best Online Sportsbooks to Bet on the Champions League
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