Thibaut Courtois, supernatural, gives away the ‘fourteenth’ (0-1)

With the situation normalized in the stands, the ball began to roll to offer a first half in which Madrid, true to its continental rhetoric, lost all the battles except the scoreboard. Liverpool, lush and dominating, outscored the whites on all fronts. The reds, with Van Dijk defending very high, Thiago setting the pattern in the middle and Mané driving the rival coverage crazy, deserved to reach the break with a favorable result. They only had one problem to achieve: Courtois. If the Belgian goalkeeper’s Champions League was already excellent, in Paris it was proposed to reach the enrollment. Up to five stops he had to make zero to keep his goal in the first half, one of which was of great merit to frustrate a great gesture by Mané in the 21st minute. Jürgen Klopp’s team had a tenth of opportunities before the break, but who was closer to moving the initial equality was – oh, surprise! – Madrid. In the only daring play by Ancelotti before the half, Alaba enabled Benzema in space and the Frenchman created a mess that neither Alisson nor the English defense knew how to abort. It was the classic concession that always smiles at Real Madrid, but the VAR ended up canceling out the very interpretable offside sequence.

The whites, clearly outdated until then, used the controversy to quell. They advanced the pressure and combined with more speed to reactivate Benzema. But it was not the batsman who was responsible for punishing Liverpool’s reckless self-sufficiency, but the ever-vigorous Fede Valverde. False right wing, the Uruguayan progressed on the side and turned a bad shot into an exceptional assist for Vinicius, who started in line with Alexander-Arnold and only had to push the ball into the net. With half an hour left to play, Madrid amortized a record of the house to subdue a rival who, like City in the semis or Chelsea in the quarterfinals, was not enough to be objectively better to have the result in please. Despite the slap, the British team did not stop insisting on imposing the logic that applies to everyone except Madrid. But he continued to crash with Imperial Courtois, the author of four memorable stops worth a European Cup. Especially Salah, who played the visibly diminished final, will dream of the brilliant contribution of the Belgian goalkeeper, to whom Benzema will have to give a piece of Golden Ball. His exhibition is the history of football and goes before the good defensive exercise of men like Carvajal or Militao, secondary actors of a new Madrid feat.

Riots pointing out UEFA

The Champions League final began more than half an hour late due to a security chaos that shocked both UEFA and Saint-Denis stadium security staff. The mess caused an unusual event in the history of the most important match in European football. A 15-minute postponement was announced first, then another 15 and, finally, an extra 6 minutes. In total, 36 minutes of uncertainty marked the prologue of the duel. The warm-up had to be divided into two parts and Camila Cabello, in charge of the previous show, went out to perform at a quarter past ten. The reason for the lack of control was the mass access of fans without entrance to the stadium coupled with the proliferation of fights and thefts by petty criminals around the venue. As a result of the chaos, other ticketed fans, mostly from Liverpool, had trouble getting to their seats. It should be noted that the Champions League final was to be played in St. Petersburg, but UEFA changed its location after the Russian attack on Ukraine.