There is no other option: Real Madrid, Manchester City, Inter or AC Milan, one of them will be the next champion of the Uefa Champions League. City and Internazzionale were the last to join this exclusive group (after eliminating Bayern and Benfica, respectively) that will play the semi-finals between May 9 and 16, although the only four of them with a different story is English team, since it has never lifted a title of “The orejona“.
Despite this, the citizens do not stop insisting. This will be his third consecutive semifinal in the Champions, the same streak that, curiously, his next rival has: Real Madrid. The English got their ticket after eliminating Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals by an aggregate score of 4-1, concretizing the merit with a 1-1 draw in the second leg in Germany.
“Of course, they are three years in a row in the semifinals of the Champions League and it is very gratifying. The experience we have in this competition is felt by the players a lot and this time they want to do it really well”, evaluated Pep Guardiola, the orchestrator of Manchester City’s three semifinals between 2021 and 2023, whose greatest merit was the 2021 runner-up.
For its part, Inter got their ticket with a global score of 5-1 over Benfica. The Italian squad gave an important pass towards the semifinals from the first leg, winning 0-2 as a visitor; In the second leg, they had a 3-1 advantage but ended up giving up a 3-3 tie that showed the pride of their Portuguese rival, but it was not enough to continue alive in the tournament.
“We are very happy. It’s an important result for all of Inter: we played a great game and we deserved it throughout the 180 minutes against a high-quality team that had lost twice in the eight months before they came up against us”, celebrated Simone Inzaghi , coach of the Azzurri squad.
After this result, Inter will play the semifinals against their ‘roomie’ and one of their biggest sporting rivals, AC Milan, who plays in the same city and stadium as them. This will be the third time that the protagonists of the so-called Clásico della Madonnina face each other in the direct elimination phase of the Champions after the 2002-03 edition (also in the semifinals) and 2004-05 (quarterfinals), both won by the rossoneros.
In this way, the next semifinals of the Champions they mean a great opportunity for revenge for both Manchester City and Inter. The English squad has lost its two previous semifinals against Real Madrid, in 2016 and 2022, last year being the most painful because it came to fruition with a goal from the Merengues in extra time. In the case of Inter, he seeks to avoid a record of three eliminations in the same number of direct series against Milan.
The past leads Real Madrid, AC Milan and Inter for their winning record in the Champions, since between the three they add 24 titles (14, 7 and 3, respectively) and 9 runners-up. Manchester City, on the contrary, has only reached the final once (in 2021) and lost it, but they appeal precisely to that experience to have an opposite result towards the final date in June 2023.
Regarding the experience of the coaches, Real Madrid also leads the semifinals with Carlo Ancelotti being the one who has won the most times Champions in history, with four trophies (two with the meringues and two with AC Milan). Pep Guardiola, Manchester City’s technical director, is the other one who already knows what it’s like to win this tournament by adding two stars with FC Barcelona, although the last one was more than a decade ago (in 2011).
For their part, Stefano Pioli and Simone Inzaghi, the orchestrators of AC Milan and Inter, respectively, have not reached the maximum continental podium, but in the case of Pioli he is recognized for giving the rossonera squad their first league title in Italy after 11 years of drought (he is the current champion of Serie A).
Among the most outstanding individual data left by the last day of the quarterfinals of the Champions 2022-23 It was Erling Haaland’s 35th goal in the competition, with which he broke the tie with the historic striker of Bayern Munich and the German national team, Gerd Muller, and reached 21st place among the top scorers throughout the tournament.
