At the Stade de France
The Liverpool fans, some of whom had had such a hard time getting in, preferred to leave rather than see this after the Reds' 1-0 defeat. So it was to a Stade de France virtually devoid of its red component that Marcelo, Real Madrid's soul on the bench on Saturday evening, held up the Champions League trophy. It was the Spanish club's 14th victory in Europe's most prestigious competition, a record that has now been bettered.
But it is undoubtedly the most incredible, given that the Merengues have often looked fragile this season, and sometimes even inferior to their opponents in the final stages of the Champions League. And yet they have managed to pull off a series of turnarounds that not even the boldest of scriptwriters would have dared suggest to a producer. Behind a smile that seemed forced for once, Jürgen Klopp was clearly wondering how his Reds had failed to beat the Real side they had so badly beaten.
"We took 23 shots, nine of which were on target," explained "OptaJürgen" to the press, before turning his attention to his opponents, whom he was naturally keen to congratulate: "Real only had one shot on target. But it was the right one, from a missed Valverde shot that was tapped in at the far post by Vinicius just before the hour mark...
Courtois, the guardian angel
As is often the case this season, "Saint Thibaut" Courtois dominated the match. The Belgian goalkeeper made a monstrous nine saves to disgust Mohamed Salah, who is cursed to face Real in the final (even when Ramos is no longer there to injure him, as he did in 2018). Courtois, whose ego is as solid as it is assertive, also pulled off a Martian-like save in the 20th minute, deflecting a clever little gem from Sadio Mané onto the post. The 2018 FIFA World Cup semi-finalist finally has the victory he has so longed for, at least since he stumbled on the last step with Atlético in 2014 against... Real.
Speaking to BT Sport, the most agile of double-metre players went for the grandiloquent (but accurate): "Yesterday [Friday], in the press conference, I said that when Madrid played finals, they won them. I was on the right side of history. The White House has only lost three finals, in 1962, 1964 and 1981. Since that last defeat to Liverpool at the Parc des Princes (1-0) at the dawn of the Mitterrand era, they have won eight finals, sometimes easily, sometimes by the skin of their teeth. But won nonetheless...
Ancelotti, a man of records
It's easier to win the Champions League with Real than with any other team," says Carlo Ancelotti. The particular passion of the supporters, the history, the structure of the club... All that makes the club special." The Italian is himself a winner at heart, despite some less brilliant recent seasons at Everton and Napoli: having previously won the title twice as a player, this Saturday he set a new record of four Champions Leagues as a coach, with Milan (2003 and 2007) and Real (2014 and 2022), with just one defeat to Liverpool (2005).
"This team is easy to coach," continues the Mister. The dressing room was calm as we prepared for this match. The players have incredible confidence. That confidence comes with the history of this club. That's rare in football. And even unique. So much so, in fact, that we are more inclined to subscribe to the theory of the winner's DNA than to the 'Carlo's pussy' theory, which is easily defensible this season: not to mention the final, Madrid lost the first leg of the last 16 to PSG, the quarter-final second leg to Chelsea and the semi-final first leg to Manchester City.
"There's no such thing as luck", says Karim Benzema
Each time, Real came close to taking the lead, and each time they slipped through the window to the next round, buoyed by future Ballon d'Or winner Karim Benzema, scorer of 15 C1 goals this season, including 10 in the knockout phase. Benzema's 16th was disallowed late in the first half on Saturday for an offside flag that was confirmed after an interminable VAR call. There's no such thing as luck," the captain of five European Cups, one of the guarantors along with Modric and Marcelo of the group's balance, told Canal+. You can be lucky once, but not every time. We deserve our victory. We made an effort, we came back every time, we never gave up.
Wearing a T-shirt bearing the "14" logo that was as eloquent as it was unattractive, Ancelotti added another layer of praise in the Stade de France press room: "At the start of the season, nobody thought we could win this competition. We deserved it. We suffered a lot along the way, but we never lost heart. Even when Kylian Mbappé opted to stay at PSG after a whirlwind telenovela? "Today, Mbappé doesn't exist, there's the Real Madrid party," said president Florentino Perez on Spanish channel Movistar, with the insolence of people who succeed in everything.
Text by Nicolas Stival 20Minutes.fr
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