Juventus 1 Real Madrid 4: Cristiano Ronaldo fires Los Blancos to historic second successive Champions League triumph
It was not meant to be for Gianluigi Buffon and his team-mates as they ran out of steam in the second half in Cardiff
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THE torrent of honours, records and eye-popping scoring stats are becoming frankly ridiculous.
As Real Madrid achieved the mighty feat of becoming the first side to retain the European Cup during the Champions League era, Cristiano Ronaldo somehow managed to make it all about him.
In the past 53 weeks, he has been a European champion THREE times, twice with Real and once with Portugal.
He has won the World Player of the Year award and the Spanish title, he has surpassed 50 goals for the season, 100 Champions League goals and career total of 600 for club and country.
Perhaps most remarkably of all, Ronaldo has netted ten goals in five games from the quarter-finals onwards in this season’s Champions League.
He helped himself to five against Bayern Munich, a hat-trick against Atletico and two here in Cardiff against a wonderful Juventus side who did not deserve to lose — simply for the extraordinary nature of their equaliser, scored by Mario Mandzukic.
The exceptional quality of this final was a reminder of the exalted level Ronaldo operates at.
To be outstanding in this sort of company takes some doing.
And to think Gareth Bale was supposed to depose him as Madrid’s kingpin when he broke the Portuguese’s world transfer record with his £86million move back in 2013.
There was a Godzilla-sized billboard of Bale looming over what they now call the Principality Stadium.
But the boyo of the Bernabeu was left on the bench at the start, following a season wrecked by injury which has left his future in some doubt.
Isco has been outstanding during the Welshman’s absence and an immediate return to the starting line-up for the hometown hero would have smacked of the kind of star obsession Real left behind after the Galactico era of Zinedine Zidane’s playing days.
This was too serious for any thoughts of marketing or sentimentality, this was a quest to make history — and Zidane, after just 16 months as a manager, now has two Champions Leagues, one La Liga, one European Super Cup and a World Club Championship.
Not bad for starters.
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No team had retained the European Cup since AC Milan in 1990 — so long ago that Carlo Ancelotti was actually playing in the final against Benfica — and it was a very different competition back then, the winners only having to play nine matches in total.
In the Champions League era, keeping hold of the thing had seemingly become impossible. But despite the vast experience of their opponents, Real travelled with great hope after their first domestic title in five years.
With the stadium’s roof closed and both sets of supporters making enough noise to allow us to forget the tens of thousands of corporate suits who somehow get tickets for this showpiece, the stage was set for a classic between two of world football’s super powers.
It was a pity Uefa could not manage to get the fixture to kick off on time — the Black Eyed Peas and a dance troupe somehow allowed to keep two sets of players pent up in the tunnel, before it got under way four minutes late.
Not that it was not worth a far longer wait. The tempo was breathless, the passing impossibly crisp and rhythmic, the tackling as bone-jarring as you would expect with Sergio Ramos, Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci on the same pitch.
Juventus created the first opening when Miralem Pjanic’s 20-yard drive forced Keylor Navas to plunge low to his right. Soon, though, it was Ronaldo time. The World Player of the Year collected the ball from Karim Benzema and exchanged passes with Dani Carvajal before he pinged a first-time shot into the corner of the net via a slight, but possibly crucial, deflection off Bonucci.
It was a marvellous passing move, yet seven minutes later it was comprehensively blown out of the water as a spectacle.
What happened then was just about the most mesmeric move ever witnessed in a major football match, up there with Brazil’s fourth goal in the 1970 World Cup final. Bonucci, just inside the Real half, looked up and played a 40-yard diagonal pass to Alex Sandro on the left wing.
The ball never touched the deck again until it had hit the net — Sandro’s cushioned volley of a centre to Gonzalo Higuain, who chested it and flicked a pass to Mandzukic.
Chesting down, with his back to goal and Carvajal tight behind him, the Croatian forward suddenly imagined himself executing a bicycle kick from the edge of the box — and so he looped one over Navas in a gorgeous arc.
For its teamwork, the quality of its finish and the importance of the occasion, it is difficult to remember a better goal.
Real started the second half purposefully and Luka Modric forced a decent save from Gigi Buffon.
Then the quick, decisive one-two from Real. Toni Kroos had a shot blocked and the rebound ran to Casemiro, who hammered it from 30 yards — Sami Khedira turning his back and helping it on its way past Buffon.
Three minutes later it was all over, a pass down the right flank from Carvajal was superbly cut back from the by-line by Modric and Ronaldo nipped in at the front stick to tuck it home.
Juan Cuadrado was sent off, thanks to some Ramos theatrics, and young Marco Asensio added a fourth from Marcelo’s cut-back.
Almost unnoticed, Bale had made it on as a late sub for Benzema.
But even on the green, green grass of home, he was never going to take the limelight away from Ronaldo.
