He admitted prior to the championship game that he felt under pressure to assist Manchester City in winning the Champions League.
The goal that finally gave Pep Guardiola’s team the title of European champions, however, did not need to come from their top scorer Erling Haaland.
Haaland has been merciless this year, scoring 52 goals in a record-breaking rookie season at City. As a result, Inter Milan came up with a strategy to keep him quiet.
On the day of the game, Inter manager Simone Inzaghi announced that he and his coaching staff had developed a plan to counteract the threat posed by Haaland. Their strategy was working by halftime.
Inter always had one, and occasionally two, players on Haaland whenever the ball was headed towards their goal, preventing the Norwegian from having the time or room to threaten their goal like he has done to so many other teams this season.
Haaland only once managed to get past Inter’s diligent and disciplined defence, when Kevin De Bruyne set him up. De Bruyne’s night would end prematurely nine minutes later due to injury.
Haalad was forced to take a wider position than he would have liked by De Bruyne’s pass, which prevented the striker from firing his angled effort as cleanly and powerfully as he would have liked. Nevertheless, he managed to hit the target, and Andre Onana blocked the shot.
After just three minutes, Haaland had a clear shot on the Inter goal, with De Bruyne again providing the assist, but the attacker was flagged for offside after lifting the ball over the bar. With the exception of those two chances, City’s prolific front man had a quiet first half.
Haaland only got nine touches in the opening 45 minutes, demonstrating both his supporting role and Inter’s successful job of neutralizing his threat.
Haaland only had one goal in his last seven games going into the championship game, but this was a night when City’s record-breaking No. 9 did not need to score.
It may have been asking too much for Haaland to be City’s match-winner once more given his heroics this season, which featured 12 goals in as many Champions League appearances.
Despite the fact that he was held without a goal, Haaland persisted in working hard, running the channels and moving defenders out of the way so that others could pressure Inter’s defense.
With 13 minutes remaining, he did exactly that, releasing his marker to make room for Phil Foden to rush into the area and fire a sparing shot at Onana.
It didn’t matter since Rodri’s precise goal in the 68th minute sealed the victory, allowing City to finally conquer Europe and complete an unprecedented triple.