Inter Milan vice-president Javier Zanetti has candidly admitted that he does have a preferred opponent in the club's first Champions League final in 13 years.
Inter reached next month's Istanbul showpiece - their first final of European football's showpiece event since Zanetti captained them to victory over Bayern Munich in 2010 - with a comfortable 3-0 aggregate win over city rivals AC Milan on Tuesday, as Lautaro Martinez's solitary goal secured a 1-0 win on the night.
Simone Inzaghi's side will take on Manchester City or Real Madrid on June 10, and Zanetti says he hopes it'll be Pep Guardiola's side who are contesting the final with them.
"Great emotion. This group deserved this emotion," Zanetti, who played for Inter for 19 years and was in the side beaten by Milan in the 2003 semi-final, told reporters on Tuesday.
"Now we wait for tomorrow to discover the opponent but it’s already a lot to have arrived at this moment.
"I would like to avoid Real Madrid because this competition seems made for Real Madrid.
"But now it counts just being there. A derby in the semi-final is very tough, I experienced it as a defeated player."
Forward Romelu Lukaku, for whom the final could be an Inter swansong before he returns to parent club Chelsea from his loan spell, is less concerned about who his side face though, and is well aware of the quality of both.
"It doesn’t matter," he said after the game.
"In this stage in your career when you play finals you know you’re going to play the biggest teams.
"Man City are playing absolutely brilliant football. Pep Guardiola has a tactical plan for every game. Very different to the other teams in the Premier League because for every game there is a pattern of play, so sometimes they might aim for the second post, sometimes they aim for the near post, teams in the Premier League have difficulty adapting to that.
"Real Madrid they have two wingers who are absolute quality right now – Vinicius (Junior) and Rodrygo. They are becoming world-class players, (Federico) Valverde is coming through in midfield.
"I just want to see a good game to be honest, and then at the end of the day, may the best team win."
AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli was left to rue the defeat, but insisted that his players' character shouldn't be questioned.
"It’s not fair to talk about the desire of the players, Inter deserved it but talking about the desire for players doesn’t seem right to me," he told reporters.
"The first 15 minutes of the first leg which then affected tonight’s match as well. I think we had a good first half where we created two or three chances, we could have changed the momentum of the game. Sadly we got here with great merit, we hoped to go to the final."
