In a showstopping display of dominance, Real Madrid became the first team to retain the Champions League, hammering Juventus 4-1.
This was a game of two halves, with Juve dominating the first frame but then getting absolutely blown away by Los Blancos after half-time. What did we learn? Well…
1. Cristiano Ronaldo: world’s deadliest striker
Do we need to run the numbers? They’ll just upset those of you around the world who consider yourself goalscorers. It would be the coldest of reality checks. Like getting slapped in the face with a block of ice on a night out in Glasgow. Oh, alright then…
42 goals this season in 46 games. 105 goals in the Champions League (One. Hundred. And. Five.) Ten goals in his last five games in Europe, the Champions League quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. Against Bayern Munich, Atlético Madrid and now Juventus.
The first goal itself was simplicity. Receiving the ball on the edge of the box he slipped Dani Carvajal through on the overlap. The Spaniard cut the ball back to the edge of the box and Cristiano rasped home a gorgeous guided finish which went via a hefty deflection into the far corner of the net.
1-0 Real Madrid with their first shot of the game. Cristiano scoring a goal in a third Champions League final (a record he now shares with Alfredo Di Stefano). Then just moments after Casemiro had given Madrid the lead, he struck again. A predatory run to slip him a gorgeous cross from Luka Modric.
Forget about the ideas that he’s doing this from the wing, this man is a striker. A pure goalscorer. Benzema, the nominal striker in this system, spent most of the game out wide as Real Madrid’s Portuguese assassin hovered in central spaces, ready to pounce. And pounce he did, twice, making decisive actions that turned the final inexorably in Madrid’s favour.
2. Mario Mandzukic scored the greatest goal in Champions League final history
With Zinedine Zidane watching from the side-line, Mario Mandzukic stole his crown. No, not the Champions League that remains firmly in Zidane’s grasp thanks to the performance of his players. The crown of scoring the best goal in a Champions League final.
Obviously Zidane’s volley at Hampden Park was a masterpiece, but Mandzukic’s overhead kick in the Principality Stadium has blown it out of the water. My goodness, what did we just see? What mercurial sorcery did we just witness? A shooting star threading the needle on the back of a flying pig.
Juventus were 1-0 to Real Madrid, their early game-plan was out the window. They had been by far the better side in the final but to no reward. Then Leonardo Bonucci sent a big crossfield pass to Alex Sandro and the Brazilian lifted a gorgeous first-time cross into the box where Gonzalo Higuain chested it down then clicked a short pass to Mario Mandzukic.
The Croatian controlled the ball on his chest and then turned, his back to goal, and unleashed hell. Leaning back and with Madrid defenders closing in, Mandzukic whipped his leg up so high the Moscow Ballet is frantically e-mailing his agent right now. The connection was so sweet you could almost hear the clunk of wood on leather except of course this isn’t cricket, it’s football.
It’s football, so you know what was next. The ball soared off Mandzukic’s foot in a gorgeous arc. A wondrously gentle thing that seemed to fly in slow-motion over the despairing dive (who doesn’t love a good despairing dive?) of Keylor Navas and into the back of the net. 1-1 and history was made.
The King is dead, long live the King!
3. A midfield of two halves
For the entire first period, Real Madrid’s midfield unit was held at bay by an impressive Juventus pressing attack. The Bianconeri knew just how and where to press Real Madrid in order to disrupt them, and as a result Juve were by far the better side.
But in the second half, they weren’t as dedicated to their work, and they gave Real Madrid and inch. And that brilliant midfield only needs an inch. Suddenly Luka Modric and Isco were more prominent in the game and Juventus couldn’t get anywhere near them.
The pressure began building on Juventus. And unlike previous matches there was no sense that Juve were in control, Madrid had taken the ascendancy, seizing it from their Italian opponents and they pushed on and pressed Juve further and further back until they were basically sat in Buffon’s lap.
That the game was settled by a Real Madrid midfielder launching a 30 yard shot at goal which deflected massively off a Juventus player beyond the despairing dive of Gianluigi Buffon perfectly encapsulated the match. Juve sat so deep and Madrid’s midfield used that shocking nativity to destroy them.
4. Juventus changed Dani Alves more than he changed them
Juventus have now lost the last five Champions League finals they’ve been in: 1997, 1998 (against Real Madrid), 2003, 2015 and now 2017. They are a powerhouse side in Italy and can even dominate many sides in the Champions League, but then it comes to the big European finals? They lose.
Dani Alves arrived at Juventus as a winner. A serial winner. He’d played in five European finals previous to tonight and won them all. 2005 and 2006 in the UEFA Cup with Sevilla. 2009, 2011 and 2015 in the Champions League with Barcelona. When he joined Juve, Gianluigi Buffon sent him a message asking him to teach Juve how to win the Champions League.
In the end, he couldn’t teach them. In the end they changed him more than he changed them. Despite dominating the semi-finals and helping Juve to a domestic double, Dani Alves, along with every other Juventus player, fell to pieces under Real Madrid’s second half pressure. As Los Blancos stood tall, La Vecchia Signora sat down wearily in her rocking chair and sighed, watching on as Dani Alves had a shocker and lost his first ever major European final.
5. Zinedine Zidane makes Champions League history, and that feels right
Zinedine Zidane is the first manager since Arrigo Sacchi 27 years ago to retain the Champions League. A near 30 year gap shows just how impossible it is to retain the damn thing, to rise to the top of the mountain yet again. It seems so fitting that Zinedine Zidane is the man to finally do it.
Sure, their win in 2016 was extremely lucky from back-to-front, but tonight? In the harder challenge of retaining that trophy they so fortunately won? They were supreme. Yes, luck again played a part, especially against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals and with the finishes in the final, but so what?
They deserved this victory, the changes they made in the second half, the way Madrid dominated the game, they deserved to get this win. This is an incredible side and it’s all down to the mindset that Zinedine Zidane has instilled at the Santiago Bernabeu.
And it is so fitting that the Frenchman who is so identified with the competition thanks to his showstopping goal in Hampden Park is the first coach to actually retain it. Sure, a tactical genius could have done it, but would that have fit the romance the Champions League so badly wants to proclaim as its hallmark? No way. Nothing could be more fitting than Zinedine Zidane once again doing the impossible on the European stage.
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