“People think Madrid are dead, but Madrid are never, never dead,” Eduardo Camavinga had said before the game. After the way Real Madrid won the Champions League last season, a triumph of resistance, resilience and brilliant cameos, it perhaps didn’t need reiterating. But in beating Liverpool 5–2 on Tuesday, Madrid did it again.
At times early on, Real Madrid was outplayed, yet it somehow had the inner belief, allied to the individual brilliance, to come back. The capacity to ride out storms is built-in. The main difference this week was that it was the new generation who dragged Madrid back into the game. Where last season, Madrid relied on Karim Benzema, Luka Modrić and Thibaut Courtois, this time it was Vinícius Júnior and Fede Valverde who excelled—although Modrić and Benzema played key parts as well.
But it took time before they imposed themselves. For 20 minutes the sense was that Madrid could not handle Liverpool’s pace and aggression. This is the first time since the tournament adopted this format in 2003-04 that there had been only one Spanish side in the last 16, and in those opening minutes the temptation was to see Madrid as representative of a La Liga in decline. Even in victory, there must be a thought that better teams than this season’s Liverpool will exploit Madrid’s defensive weaknesses. But then, people said that last season as well.
