Guardiola from Wonderwall, 4396 days later wins the third Champions

At one point Guardiola knelt on the ground. Eyes wide open, palms on the grass, gaze expired, incredulous, because that ball shouldn’t have ended up at Lautaro’s feet.

Destiny

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Pep risked losing the Champions League due to a crack in the perfect system, a short circuit that led Akanji to slip a pass that was too short to reach Ederson. Here it is the turning point. Guardiola kneeling on the Ataturk lawn, one centimeter away from yet another European hoax after years of losing semi-finals and another lost Champions League against Chelsea in 2021. This time no, Pep is European champion for the third time like Zinedine Zidane and Bob Paisley. The second one treble of his career, celebrated with his wife in the center of the field. “I still have to digest what happened,” he told Sky: “The idea of ​​the game is always the same, today we struggled because Calhanoglu jumped Rodri when we thought Brozovic would. Congratulations to Inter, a sensational team. I guess what audition because we spent two years ago, but being the second club in Europe is no small thing. A difficult team to face, physically very strong. And I tell Inzaghi that he will return to the final”.

Tears

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Everyone in Istanbul is crying, but he laughs proudly, slipping his players arm in arm one by one. The giant Haaland cringes and cries. He can only say “unbelievable”. All while he moved moved around the stadium and embraces Mario Pafundi, the physiotherapist of the City. Destiny also had a hand on the match-winning goal, because the man who gave Pep his third Champions League was born and raised in Madrid, their rival city for twenty years. His name is Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, but everyone calls him Rodri, from today the hero of Ataturk. City will sleep in Istanbul and depart for Manchester on Sunday morning, on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. On Monday afternoon he will celebrate the Treble with an open bus through the city. “The Champions League is a currency – continued Pep -. In the previous matches we were a disaster when we could have been underdogs, now it’s wonderful. And we could have lost this time…”. A tackle to the critics: “Now I’m wiser, perhaps? And what happens if Ederson doesn’t make that save? Say what you want now, the important thing is that we have always been at the top in the last 7-8 years”.

Third Champions League

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Pep lifted the curse. “You have won two Champions thanks to Messi”, they told him. For ten years like this, a broken record that he has never listened to. He rather he persevered, fought, stood tall and improved himself and the group. Between 2014 and 2022 he lost four times in the semi-finals, three in the quarter-finals and once in the round of 16, not counting the final loss in 2021 against Chelsea. With City he came out against Lyon, Liverpool and Tottenham, while at Bayern he missed the final on goal difference between home and away goals. The Barcelona of the “Monstars”, the “little guys” of the ball made phenomena thanks to his perfect game, was for several years a sentence, a curse, chased away in the night of Istanbul. Pep back to winning the Champions League 4396 days after the last time. It was May 28, Barcelona-United 3-1. Today is June 10th. Wonderwall, here it is.