Three men reached the Wembley pitch before the Champions League final was a minute old. Security caught them all, one only after a chase that nearly ended in the crowd. Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund then played on, and by the end of the night Madrid had won 2-0 and lifted the trophy for a record-extending 15th time.
“Getting used to it? Never,” said coach Carlo Ancelotti, who stretched his own record to five wins as a coach. “The dream continues.” He was honest about the match, though. “It was a very difficult game, much more difficult than we had expected. We changed things because in the first half we were a bit lazy.”
Dortmund miss, Courtois holds
Dortmund had the better of the first half and wasted it. Julian Brandt scuffed an early chance. Karim Adeyemi ran through a gap in the Madrid defence and took his touch too wide to get round Thibaut Courtois. Niclas Fullkrug hit the inside of the post. Opta figures cited by beIN SPORTS put Dortmund’s first-half expected goals at 1.68, the biggest first-half figure in a Champions League final since 2013-14, while Madrid managed no shot on target before the break.
Courtois was playing his first Champions League game of the season, back from two serious knee injuries. His saves kept the score level. Over Madrid’s last two finals he has faced 12 shots on target and stopped every one, according to beIN.
Madrid improved after the interval. Gregor Kobel saved a Toni Kroos free kick and Dani Carvajal headed close. Then, with 16 minutes left, Carvajal guided a Kroos corner past Kobel. The second came from Vinicius Junior, who collected a pass from Jude Bellingham after Ian Maatsen misplaced a ball. Fullkrug thought he had pulled one back, but the goal was ruled out for offside.
Kroos, playing the last game of his club career, led all 22 starters with 108 touches and 94 passes attempted, completing 91. The corner for Carvajal’s opener was one of his four chances created.
A record shared
Carvajal, Luka Modric, Nacho and the retiring Kroos each won a sixth European Cup, equalling the mark Paco Gento set in the 1950s and 1960s. Madrid have not lost a major European final since the 1983 Cup Winners’ Cup against Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen. For Ancelotti it was a seventh European crown overall, two as a player at Milan and five as a coach.
The night outside the pitch
The invasion was the one blemish. “It is illegal to enter the field of play at Wembley Stadium, and we strongly condemn the actions of those who interrupted the UEFA Champions League Final shortly after kick-off,” a Wembley spokesperson said, adding that all three individuals had been arrested.
The Metropolitan Police reported 53 arrests at the stadium in total, five of them for pitch invasion and most of the rest for attempts to get past security. Commander Louise Puddefoot, who led the operation, said the overwhelming majority of attempts to enter unlawfully had failed. Online videos of groups running into entrances, she said, did not necessarily show successful attempts.
Sources
- Champions League final marred as three arrests made over pitch invasion | 7NEWS
- What the numbers say about Real Madrid's Champions League dominance | beIN SPORTS
