Ninety career minutes, a title with both Smicer and Haaland. Istanbul’s Champions League king downed Milan twice

The journalists have written a lot about Saturday’s Champions League final. The heroes of the champions, Erling Haaland and Pep Guardiola, have been highlighted, but goalkeeper Scott Carson also offers an interesting story.

Scott Carson is now the club’s number three, but more accurately he is more of a playing coach. He is 37 years old, has been at Manchester City since his summer 2021 transfer from Derby County, and has only played two games in two years.

Specifically, in the previous two seasons, he has started once each time. This year, he didn’t get between the three sticks at all, but at the same time he had the year of his life. He made his Premier League and FA Cup debuts even better with Saturday’s triumph in the Champions League final.

While it was the first-ever championship for the Citizens and most of their squad, Carson enjoyed winning the trophy for the second time. He had already dominated the world’s most prestigious club competition in the 2004/05 season with Liverpool.

Liverpool’s then great achievement is memorable for the turnaround from 0:3 to 4:3 and the influence of Vladimir Smicer on the result is also entertaining in Czech eyes. Carson had only been at the club for half a year at the time of the final and hadn’t got in goal.

Still, it cannot be said that he had zero part in the triumph. The chance he got in the home quarter-final against Juventus helped him win 2-1. That was his only start in the Champions League, also one of nine he was given the opportunity to play in a Liverpool jersey.

Two facts link Carson’s two finals. First of all, they were both played in the Turkish capital of Istanbul. At the same time, Carson was on the side of the ancient winner in both cases, facing a club from Milan. AC 18 years ago, Inter this year.

Apart from the quarter-final with Juventus, he spent the matches, including the final, on the substitutes’ bench. He was at Liverpool for the whole of the next season and then wandered around on loan, from which he was only rescued by West Bromwich’s buyout in 2008.

Source: Champions League