2023 Champions League Final

2023 Champions League Final; All you need to know

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It may be a far cry from football in South Africa, but we now know who will be contesting the 2023 Champions League final in early June. Manchester City and Inter Milan will be the two teams in the final, but what else do we need to know about the biggest club match in world football?

Where and when is the 2023 Champions League final?

The match will be taking place on Saturday, June 10th, at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Türkiye. This will be the second time the stadium has hosted the match, following Liverpool’s win on penalties over AC Milan, in the final back in 2005.

Who is the favorite to win the 2023 Champions League?

There’s an overwhelming favorite to win the 2023 Champions League, and it’s Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side. The Blues are 2/9 to win the cup outright, with Inter Milan priced up at 7/2 in the betting to lift the trophy. It’s fair to say the best sports betting sites strongly favor City to win. Betting sites listed on bettors.co.zm are also indicating that they believe City will win in regulation time. In 90-minute match betting, City is 2/5, with the draw at 15/4, and Inter Milan at 6/1. It seems the top betting sites can’t see past a win for Manchester City.

Routes to the Final

Home Dominance for City

And this is part of the reason why, City have been magnificent. To start with, mancity.com were drawn in Group G, which they topped with 14 points. After topping the group, they took on German Bundesliga side RB Leipzig in the Round of 16. The 1st leg in Germany was an edgy affair, finishing 1-1. The 2nd leg in Manchester, was less so, with City winning 7-0.

Onto the last eight, and City again had German opposition, but this time it was a step up in class, as they faced Bayern Munich. This time City were at home first, and effectively put the tie to bed with a 3-0 win. In the 2nd leg, the match finished 1-1 in Munich, giving Pep’s team a 4-1 aggregate win.

Then in the semi-final, they faced the defending champions, Real Madrid. After a slow start in the 1st leg, Real took a 1-0 lead. That lead was snuffed out by Kevin de Bruyne, with a second half-wonder strike, meaning the opening match ended 1-1. Back in Manchester for the 2nd leg, City were unstoppable. Pep’s men blew Madrid away with a 4-0 win, giving them a 5-1 win on aggregate.

Inter comes through the group of death

Inter Milan found themselves in Group C, which was a group of death featuring Bayern Munich, Barcelona, and Viktoria Plzen. Remarkably, the Italians qualified for the knock-out stages with a match to spare.

In the Round of 16, inter.it found itself up against Porto. A 1-0 win in the 1st leg at the San Siro was enough to see them through to the quarter-finals. At this point, they faced more Portuguese opposition in Benfica. A win of 2-0 in the away leg put Inter in pole position, and after an entertaining 3-3 draw in the 2nd leg, Inter were into the semi-finals.

This was one of the matchups of the whole Champions League season, a two-match derby against city rivals, AC Milan.

Like in the previous two rounds, Inter did the bulk of the hard work in the 1st leg. They were 2-0 up inside the first 11 minutes, and it was all uphill for AC Milan from there. A solitary goal from Lautaro Martínez in the 2nd leg secured the win, and Inter’s place in the Champions League final for the first time since they last won it in 2010.

Will there be a new name on the trophy in 2023?

The win in 2010, was the third time Inter has won the Champions League. Their two previous wins were in 1964 and 1965. As for Manchester City, they have never won the trophy before. The closest they have come was in 2021, when they lost 1-0 to Chelsea in an all-English final at the Estádio do Dragão in Portugal.

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