The ability to deliver when the stakes are at their highest is what separates the very good from the all-time greats.
Goals in the biggest games go down in history, so when a strike such as Gareth Bale’s spectacular overhead kick that helped seal Real Madrid’s 13th European Cup go in, they are remembered forever.
That was the go-ahead goal against Liverpool in the 2018 final, as the Welshman made a 29-minute game-changing cameo by netting twice to secure the Spanish side’s 3-1 victory in Kyiv.
Marcelo on what it meant to assist Bale’s 2018 Champions League final brace
While the history books will credit Bale as the matchwinner, the former Tottenham winger had his Brazilian team-mate Marcelo to thank for laying on two assists.
Bale’s overhead kick came courtesy of a Marcelo cross from the left - albeit one which the Brazilian did not expect the Wales international to score from.
“No, because I wanted to send the ball into another area,” Marcelo admits to FourFourTwo eight years on. “But it brushed slightly off Sadio Mané’s foot and Bale had to improvise that finish.
“I could say it was a calculated assist, but that would be false!”
For Marcelo, this goal showed the sport of football at its unpredictable best.
“That goal showed that football is sometimes more improvisation than planning,” he continues.
“Bale scored with an overhead kick because he needed to, not because it had been prepared.”
The former Fluminense star would lay on a second assist with seven minutes of the final remaining, as he found Bale in space, who tried his luck from range and saw a swerving shot go through the hands of Loris Karius, who had also made an error for Karim Benzema’s opener.
“If I have to choose one of the two assists, it would be the second,” Marcelo says.
“Because I executed a precise switch of play that nobody expected, which allowed Bale to finish freely, albeit with Loris Karius’ error.”
The 3-1 victory over Liverpool saw Marcelo earn the fourth of his five Champions League winners’ medals, even if it was Bale who took the headlines that evening.
