Real Madrid claimed their 15th UEFA Champions League crown last night when they defeated German giants Borussia Dortmund 2-0 at the Wembley. Second half goals from Daniel Carvajal and Vinicious Junior ensured the Galacticos’ 2nd UCL title in three years.
In the presence of so many football legends like Sir Alex Ferguson, Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Juergen Klopp to name a few, the most awaited game of European club football started bit slowly at the English capital when neither side pushed their opponents in the first quarter of the game. To be more precise, Real dominated the early possessions but couldn’t penetrate in the Dortmund defence.
Since then Dortmund started to pressurise the Madrid defence quite frequently and they got a wonderful chance on the 21st minute when defender Mats Hummels strode into the midfield and played a perfectly times forward pass to left winger Karim Adeyemi who was in a one on one position with Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. But while surpassing the Belgian goalie the German forward took the ball in a too much wide position which eventually helped defender Carvajal to close down the angle with a sliding challenge, preventing Adeyemi to produce a shot at goal.
Just a couple of minutes later, “Die Schwarzgelben” were again denied the by the woodwork when left back Ian Maasten won the ball high up the pitch and provided a defence splitting pass to striker Nicklas Fullkrug after Marcel Sabitzer’s initial cross was cleared. Though the German was able to beat the goalkeeper with his left footed strike, the goalpost came to rescue the Spanish outfit.
During the rest of the first half, Dortmund created more chances but were unable to convert any of those in goal while Real were looking a bit lacklustre in the attacking third, failing to create any meaningful opportunity.
However, after the restart, Real slowly started to take charge of the game by creating more and more chances and keeping a healthy possession and their persistence was paid off when they went ahead courtesy to a powerful header from full back Dani Carvajal. German International Toni Kroos who was playing his final game of his club career, took a corner kick which found the unmarked Carvajal who made no mistake to break the deadlock with a perfectly executed header on the 74th minute.
While the clock was approaching 83rd minute, there was a mix up in the Dortmund defence that allowed Jude Bellingham to intercept and the talismanic England playmaker perfectly fed the ball to advancing Vinicious Junior who slotted home with his left foot giving hardly any chance to Dortmund keeper Gregor Kobel.
Apart from Toni Kroos of Real, another German International Marco Reus also played his final game for Dortmund last night though he was introduced late in the second half.
With this victory, Carlo Ancelotti alias ‘Don Carlo’ became the most successful manager in the history of UEFA Champions League with five winner’s medals, out of which three are with his present employers and the remaining two are with AC Milan.
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