Dortmund were better than Real Madrid in the Champions League final, their past is gilded, their present is bejeweled and their future is Mbappe.
History isn’t really written by the winners, at least when it comes to the Champions League. Borussia Dortmund wrote almost every line of this long, fascinating and compelling ode to the 2024 final, and Real Madrid simply cut in at the end, changed a few details, added their signature and published it.
That’s how they played. More than an hour into the game at Wembley, Germany looked the only team with a plausible, coherent plan, but the overwhelming feeling was not whether Real could fight back, but when and how.
After Joselu’s performance in the semi-finalsThere were no particularly outlandish predictions: Antonio Rüdiger in the 81st minute, Ferland Mendy in the 90th, Kepa in added time with the help of Carlo Ancelotti’s raised eyebrows. No club lives on more aura than Real Madrid, and their often comical continental dominance over the past decade has reinforced and even legitimised that sense of entitlement.
There is also the other side of the coin. No club has been more precise or prolific at shooting themselves in the foot on the biggest stage than Dortmund. The same emotional blow as last season’s Bundesliga title collapse The overwhelming emotion is one of pride, albeit exacerbated by frustration, but the theme of glory being grabbed and then missed remains.
These defining moments will replay forever in the minds of the Black and Yellow. Karim Adeyemi choosing the wrong side to slot past Thibaut Courtois as he threaded a pass into a huge gap behind the defence. A fluid move that involved six players and broke through Real but didn’t result in a goal. Niklas Fluklug hitting the post when he was presumably offside. All of this happened within two minutes of the first half, making a mockery of the pre-match David and Goliath narrative that overestimated one side and underestimated the other.
But where the Madrid manager of the time would have hastily communicated tactical changes or panicked into considering substitutions, Ancelotti casually sent Smintz off the sideline. This Madrid performance was incoherent in almost every respect. 18 months at Goodison Park should make you seem up to any challenge.
Ballon d’Or candidate Vinicius Junior shines Vinicius was the exception to Real’s general lack of quality. The Brazilian’s duels with Julien Ryerson were thrilling and endless, as he evaded the Dortmund right-back on a number of occasions but was prone to running into Mats Hummels’s rough attacks shortly afterwards.
The first, when Vinicius eventually broke both goals with some excellent footwork, drew the first of two corner kicks in quick succession, and Real took the lead from the second, a lead they never relinquished after that.
Dani Carvajal should have scored in a similar situation not long ago, when his fine move to meet Toni Kroos’ pass was marred by a powerful header into the box early in the second half, but this time his touch was perfect, the breakthrough opened up and Dortmund failed to learn their lesson.
But it was such a shame that a despairing Hummels was unable to exert himself well enough on the goal-line that he briefly considered emulating Luis Suarez against Ghana.
On both occasions it was Ian Maatsen who was fended off by Carvajal. The Chelsea loanee epitomised Dortmund’s collapse after the goal, erasing at least some of Todd Boley’s pure gains. His errant pass across his own goal was intercepted by a little-known Jude Bellingham who quickly scored for Vinicius to finish off the game in a meaningful way.
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Maatsen will likely not be pleased that it was his poor touch trying to block Federico Valverde’s shot that ultimately led to the corner that beat Dortmund. It was a catastrophically poor 10 minutes for a left-back who had been so impressive up until then.
That’s the difference. When Real lost the momentum, they just hung on, using the experience of a team that knows things are going to work in their favour. Dortmund took a moment to fight the tide, but then were swept up in it, swallowed up by it. They had conceded five shots by the 65th minute, then eight in the next half hour. Hummels was booked for bringing down Eduardo Camavinga, despite having made almost no mistakes before that.
Things might have been different if Dortmund had made the most of those chances — the same could be said about the influential Vinicius, who might have been sent off for diving while on a booking — but Dortmund are far from the first team to have to consider such an alternative timeline, and they probably won’t be the last.
“Maybe they were better in most areas, but in the end it’s all about the moment and if they don’t beat us, I think they’ll regret it later,” Bellingham said after the match. It’s easy to say that after a game, but as the game dragged on without Dortmund scoring, everyone was saying the same thing.
Bellingham then held open-secret discussions with Mourinho, Ferdinand, McManaman and Woods about summer transfer plans and possible future team-mates, but there was an ever-increasing feeling that the trophy will forever surround a team that has won it more than twice as many times as any other. Kroos will retire at the top of the league, but with five of Real’s starting XI under 25 and the looming arrival of Kylian Mbappe, the future of the Champions League will surely belong to Real, as it has been in the past and present.
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