Madrid were
outplayed for long periods over the 90 minutes, and Liverpool eventually dealt
impressively with losing their key player Mohamed Salah to injury. But Los
Blancos came out on top in the end thanks to a mix of individual brilliance on
their part and perfectly timed mistakes from their opponents.
Until 12
months ago no club had ever managed to retain the Champions League in its
modern format. But Madrid have now won three in a row - something nobody had
done since the 1970s, when the European Cup competition was much slimmer and
less competitive.The 2016, 2017 and 2018 winners now take their place in the
record books along with Franz Beckenbauer's Bayern Munich, Johan Cruyff's Ajax,
and Alfredo Di Stefano's Madrid. These are the greatest teams in the
competition's history, who all dominated their eras with a clearly identifiable
philosophy on the game.
But today's dominant force are more difficult to define.
You could say this is Cristiano Ronaldo's Madrid - as the Portuguese has now
been top-scorer in the competition in each of the last five seasons, and again
played a key role in getting the team to the final this year. Although after a
poor individual showing on Saturday night, Ronaldo showed the petulant side of
his personality by immediately threatening to leave the club this summer.
Gareth Bale
was the matchwinner against Liverpool. The Welshman's spectacular bicycle kick
was the game's key moment, and one of the outstanding goals in the tournament's
entire history. But then Bale was only a substitute on Saturday, having been a
peripheral figure for much of the 2017/18 season, and he also spoke right after
the game about playing elsewhere next season.
This Madrid
side has its Galacticos for sure -- just like the 2000 and 2002 winners with
Zidane as a player and Luis Figo, and the 1950s generation with Di Stefano and
Ferenc Puskas. However despite all their big star names, the current side is
more about the collective than the individual.Nine players have started each of
the last three finals - Keylor Navas, Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Dani Carvajal,
Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and Ronaldo.
Bale and
Raphael Varane also now have four winners medals [adding in 2014 too]. It is
quite remarkable how the same side has stayed together, especially at a time in
which the top players have become commodities which are easily traded for huge
sums.
Much of the
credit for this must to go to Zidane - who was an assistant to Carlo Ancelotti
in 2014, and has now won the most difficult trophy in world soccer in each of
his three seasons as head coach.He himself admitted last week that he was not a
tactical genius, but that is not what is required when you have so much talent
in your squad. The Frenchman prefers to concentrate on honesty of effort, competitive
spirit and enjoying the daily toil -- humble values not always associated with
the Bernabeu. If we work as hard as our opponents, he often says, then our
individual quality will do the rest.
It helps
that Zidane, having won everything as a player, has no need to feed his own ego
himself. He has freely admitted that his team have gotten breaks in key moments
through each of the last three years.
In 2014 in
Lisbon, Atletico Madrid were 1-0 up going into the 93rd minute.
Two years
later in Milan, against Atletico again, it went to penalty kicks. 12 months ago
in Cardiff,
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