Postcard from the banks of the Bosporus as the Man City Bank claim European Cup

Rodri and Jack Grealish celebrate at the full time whistle in Istanbul

Rodri and Jack Grealish celebrate at the full time whistle in Istanbul Credit: Francois Nel/UEFA/Getty Images

Macdara Ferris reports from Istanbul

The Champions League final was due to be played in Istanbul in 2020 until COVID-19 put pay to that. Three years on and the city was back on host duty welcoming fans from Manchester City and Inter Milan, as well as your extratime.com reporter.

It was my second time in Turkey having been here previously in 2008 on a planned trip to Georgia and then Montenegro to watch an Ireland double header of qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. However having landed in Istanbul, Russia’s invasion of Georgia prevented me from seeing the first match, ending up watching the Georgia v Ireland game that was moved to Germany in an internet café in Istanbul!

Fast forward 15 years and once again Russia has invaded a neighbouring country and Recep Erdogan is still running the Turkey (having been Prime Minister back in 2008). “It’s always the same sometimes,” as Damien Richardson would say. With Erdogan recently having won the run-off election for President, his face is still plastered around the city.

Istanbul is still overrun with cats but there is a new mosque in Taksim Square since my last visit and a new stadium for Besiktas. ‘Vodfaone Park’ has a beautiful setting by the Bosporus but with only a 42,000 capacity it is too small to use for a Champions League final.

It certainly would have been easier to get to than the Ataturk Olympic Stadium 25km north west of the city centre.

On the eve of the final I travelled out to the venue to hear from the managers and players of both teams.

Inter put forward their Turkish player Hakan Calhanoglu for media duty – incredibly a player from Turkey has yet to win the Champions Leauge. He was calling on the Turkish fans at the game to support his team and not Ilkay Gundogan’s side as the City player decided not to play for his Turkish homeland.

“Ilkay Gundogan is on the other team but clearly he plays for Germany so perhaps for our people it is more important for me to win,” said Calhanoglu who I’d last seen play in a goalscoring appearance for AC Milan at Tallaght Stadium:



Former Manchester United player Matteo Darmian also spoke but he didn’t really rise to the bait when asked about the three former United players in the Inter squad set to face City.

Kevin De Bruyne was one of the Sky Blue players to speak to the media. He was asked about his energy levels at the end of what has been a very long season – with the winter World Cup added in. He said: “if you are fit, you can play the whole year long. Mentally it is more tiring.”

Sadly De Bruyne would snap his hamstring and be substituted in the first half but, unlike in the final two years ago when he got clattered by Antonio Rudiger, he would end this final with a winners medal around his neck.

Saturday’s match had a 10pm kick-off so plenty of time to get to the stadium then but like last year's final things didn’t go to plan once again for UEFA and more importantly the supporters travelling to the big game. Yet again logistical issues caused chaos ahead of kick off.

Fans were encouraged to get buses from UEFA’s Fan Festival at Yenikapi just south of the city centre and enjoy the separate fan zones for each club either side of the stadium.



Traffic congestion though meant many fans were stuck in buses for hours, with some abandoning their vehicle to hike on foot to the ground. In the stadium, there were insufficient numbers of toilets and food/drink concessions – particularly in the City end. Not ideal when the temperature ahead of kick-off was around 25 degrees.

Your extratime.com reporter used the metro to get to the stadium – a 90 minute journey using three different metro lines – which worked well as I aimed to arrive about five hours ahead of kick-off. The traffic issues meant that both team buses were delayed getting to the ground, with City arriving second but without requiring the match schedule to change.

UEFA had a 30 page pdf about the Kick-Off Show ahead of the match which was handy so I could work out how long it would be (six minutes and five seconds) and who the performers were. First up was Burna Boy and then Anitta who I was informed has 64 million Instagram followers and just the 17 million YouTube subsribers.

As noted by UEFA the event will ‘be a breathtaking celebration of energy and unity, brought to life through a stunning display of costumes, dancers and musicians, pyros and SFX with a mass cast ready to deliver a high energy spectacular’ but I was just disappointed there was no Morgan Freeman.

Then it was all about the players coming out to that famous Champions League theme tune – last heard at the crowning of the new British monarch last month – then the game could begin.

Unless you are a Manchester City fan (or maybe an AC Milan fan), nobody really wanted to see City win. A grandiose sportswashing project with 115 alleged Premier League rule breaches hanging over the heads of an expensively assembled dominant squad will do that.

A decent game, some good goals and have it all wrapped up by midnight was what I had in mind ahead of the 10pm kick-off and it kind of panned out like that.

Inter gave City an excellent game, cheered on by the Italian tifosi that certainly outsung the City fans. It will be a final though that will be remembered for Rodri’s super strike to win the match and the issues with a couple of Belgian footballers; we had De Bruyne’s early injury and then another horror show off the bench for poor Romelu Lukaka.

You hope he won’t be haunted by that header that he should have buried by Ederson or his block of Di Marco’s diving header from a rebound off the bar.

It was Gundogan who got his hands on the trophy after the final whistle and in the early hours of Sunday morning, we heard from Pep Guardiola in the press conference room. He looked like relieved man with winning his third European Cup but his first one for Manchester City.

It has been a long time coming but you certainly get the feeling it won’t be the last for City.

About Macdara Ferris

Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile