INTUSK MAGAZINE

After this season's FA Cup and Premier League victories, Manchester City became the second English club to win "the treble" by battling and winning their first Uefa Champions League. This was a victory in the face of adversity.

On a tense evening in Istanbul, despite losing their Belgian playmaker Kevin De Bruyne to injury in the 35th minute, City snatched the match away from Internazionale in the 68th minute with one of their few shots on goal to claim the winning trophy.

Sheikh Mansour might need to enlarge the trophy cabinet in his office at the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in Abu Dhabi because this is only his second City game since taking over the club in 2008.

He reportedly keeps replicas of all the cutlery he's won over the years in a glass box. Along with the seven Premier League championships, three FA Cups, and six Football League Cups won during his reign, the Champions League trophy has now been added.

In the 140-year history of the club, City has only won one other piece of European silverware—the 1970 European Cup Winners Cup—but this victory might usher in a new era for English football.

City becomes the 23rd club to win the Uefa Champions League or its precursor, the European Cup, and will now hope to be a dominant force for many years to come.

They have every reason to believe this, with record annual revenues for an English club now secured and plans already submitted to expand their Etihad Stadium to more than 60,000 capacity.

The victory was perhaps all the more significant because it was earned with heart and graft rather than the usual seemingly effortless grace that has been the hallmark of Pep Guardiola's team this season.

The only other team to accomplish such a treble slam dunk on the domestic and European stages was Manchester United, who did it during the 1998–99 season when City was at its lowest point and struggling to leave the third tier of the domestic leagues.