Football is a foolish, lazy, unbridled, arbitrary sport, a game of beauty, but more often than not of failure. It’s a game with 10 million actions, but only a few defining moments. It is a competition between two sets of twenty-six feet trying to control a bouncing ball. That’s why it’s so often cruel, especially in knockout competitions. It is, in a word, unpredictable – until a Champions League final arrives and Real Madrid enters the arena.
Then it’s simple.
Then it is a game with 10 million actions, but only one possible outcome.
Opponents, like Borussia Dortmund, push and press, spar and stretch… and Real Madrid wins.
Dortmund plunged into that crushing inevitability at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday. During a stunning first half, waves of yellow rolled in and crashed into Real Madrid’s penalty area. And if this had been a normal match – a mid-season league match or even a standard cup match – they would have felt threatened. The king’s throne is said to have rocked. Perhaps it had fallen after yet another attack in Dortmund.
But instead, Niclas Füllkrug hit the inside of the post.
Karim Adeyemi shot a little too far wide.
Six against three and one against one went wrong.
And of course, 6ft 1in Dani Carvajal inevitably rose above the world, propelled by the superpower of his white shirt, to guide Real Madrid to yet another European title.
They ultimately beat Dortmund 2-0 in Saturday’s Champions League final after Vinicius Junior doubled the lead in the 83rd minute with a stunning finish from the penalty area. They lifted La Orejona, the cup with the big ears, for a record-extending 15th time. (No one else has more than seven.)
It was their sixth title in eleven seasons, which is honestly quite absurd. Since 2013, they have competed in this battle of 32 teams from the best clubs in the world eleven times… and won more often than not.
The odds of each The team that wins the modern Champions League six times in eleven seasons is minuscule. Even someone with a free pass through the group stages and a 70% chance of winning in each knockout round would, according to a rough calculation, have a 0.1% chance. Even the very best teams stumble regularly.
And Real Madrid have remarkably rarely entered as the very best team. In those eleven seasons, the team topped the Spanish La Liga only four times. It lagged behind Barcelona for much of the last decade and then the rising tide of the English Premier League.
Manchester City meanwhile became the perennial favorite. City are currently, even according to Real Madrid striker Rodrygo, ‘better’ than Madrid and ‘the best team in the world’. Under Pep Guardiola they have won six of the last seven Premier League titles, including four in a row, both unprecedented runs in the multi-century history of English football.
And in the Champions League?
Well, they lost to Monaco in the round of 16, then to Liverpool and then to Tottenham in the quarter-finals. They fell to Lyon in 2020. The following season they reached the final, but lost to Chelsea. They have only been at the top of Europe once: last season.
In other words, City – like every team, in every knockout competition, from the World Cup to the Europa Conference League – have succumbed to the unpredictability of football; and for the only club seemingly impervious to that unpredictability: Real Madrid.
The ‘best team in the world’ fell victim to late goals from Madrid in 2022. In 2024, in an April quarter-final, Madrid dominated in every statistical category but lost on penalties.
It also succumbed to the seeming inevitability of the now fifteen-time European champions often struggling and sputtering, but simply not losing.
They started their run in 2014 with an equalizer in the 93rd minute and then extra time. They continued in 2016 with a shootout win, and in 2018 with some luck plus a Gareth Bale world-mate. In 2022, they won with one shot on target to Liverpool’s nine, and three total shots to Liverpool’s 23. They have not lost a Champions League final in their last nine attempts.
In 2024 they should certainly have lost in the quarter-finals, but they outlasted City. They appeared to have lost to Bayern Munich in the semi-finals until Joselu arrived. On Saturday they weathered a storm in the first half, with 1.7 expected Dortmund goals (xG) compared to just 0.1 for Madrid.
But was there ever any doubt about the outcome?
Advanced stats do not take into account aura, a trait that is difficult to define but is clearly relevant here.
“We always seem to find a way to get back into a game and win it,” Bale, who is now retired, told The Guardian this week. “It’s that look; other teams are arguably playing now [against] the badge and not necessarily [against] the team. There is momentum behind it, Real Madrid and the European Cup. Teams are afraid to play against Real Madrid and that is so important.”
Were Dortmund afraid? Was it bad luck? Was it inferior, even slightly, in the final third?
It was probably a combination of those things and others.
But there is no common thread, no coherent explanation for six Champions League titles in eleven years.
“It’s something incredible,” Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti, the ever-serene architect, said after the match.
It shouldn’t be possible in such a premier and fickle league, but here we are. It seems that Real Madrid has overcome the invincible.
