Real Madrid are inevitable. Sometimes football can feel futile when you face the club that consider this competition their own. It doesn’t matter what you do, you’re doomed. However well you play, however brave you are, however many chances you make, however badly they play in fact, somehow you know. This is just what the men in white do. In short, as RB Leipzig found out, they win.
They faced a shot for each of their 14 European Cups yet won the first leg, Brahim Díaz scoring the only goal out of nowhere, and they suffered again in the second leg, playing to the sound of whistles from fearful fans, but still escaped into the last eight.
Dani Olmo hit the bar with a lovely lob in the final minute as Leipzig kept coming but, while Madrid had lived on edge, they live to play another day. Sometimes it feels like they like it this way. They always find a way, their hardest nights the ones that foretell them standing there with that trophy in their hands again.
It was Jude Bellingham who strode up the pitch and set up Vinícius Júnior to score the goal that ultimately saw them through. Even after that strike, which came as an explosion of relief, they suffered and they conceded, but Madrid had made it. Leipzig could hardly have done more – except score more than one of their 20 shots – but there was no comeback.
Poor Marco Rose. He was entitled to imagine it was possible to win: proof there was hope came from the first leg when, he said, his team had competed with Madrid as “equals”. If anything that was actually an understatement. So too was the judgment of Nacho Fernández, the Madrid captain, who departed the second leg with an admission: “We know this wasn’t our best game.” But it is one thing to take the game to Madrid, quite another to take the game from them, history repeating itself.
A fortnight ago, Leipzig had a goal ruled out and Andriy Lunin made nine saves, equalling Madrid’s record in the competition. Two weeks on, Leipzig felt they might have faced 10 men when Vinícius escaped a red, and forced the goalkeeper into action again.
It started early, the visitors’ first five – yes, five – chances made inside 15 minutes. The first of those, admittedly, was eventually ruled offside and as Benjamin Sesko ran clean through you sensed he knew it would be, something doubtful in his stride and deficient in his finish. Lunin saved just in case, but it was a sign of things to come. Soon after Sesko slotted in Loïs Openda, space opening in front of him. The shot was scuffed and might also have been the wrong decision: Olmo was standing free, shouting for the ball.
That was followed by a Willi Orban header wide and another clear opportunity, which started with wonderful footwork from Olmo and ended with Openda firing wide.
With Xavi Simons floating, connecting everything, Leipzig were taking control. Madrid, playing with five midfielders and Bellingham up front, were oddly flat despite Carlo Ancelotti saying he was after “energy” and “quick transitions”, fans letting them know exactly what they thought of a poor performance.
Only once in the first half did Madrid threaten: when Federico Valverde slipped in Bellingham, whose shot was blocked. At the other end, hearts leapt when Toni Kroos stepped away from a challenge inside his area and, if his wasn’t one of them, the concern kept growing. Simons saw one shot defected just wide and another palmed away by Lunin. From the corner, Openda thumped just past the post. There were whistles around the arena, and they were getting ever more insistent.
Ancelotti reacted by removing Eduardo Camavinga and bringing on Rodrygo but the second half started with Openda going around Lunin only to find the keeper recovering to dive at his feet. Vinícius got a yellow card that might have been red when he pushed Orban over – twice.
Benjamin Henrichs then wasted the chance to provide a telling ball and, a couple of minutes later, headed over. It took an hour for Vinícius to dash free for the first time, the ball coming to Bellingham to shoot. Next Rodrygo forced a sharp save from Peter Gulacsi. Madrid, at last, were alive.
Only Madrid are always alive. And then it came, of course it did. A Leipzig attack broke down and there was Bellingham striding 60 yards and slipping to Vinícius, who flashed in the finish. Almost immediately after Antonio Rüdiger dived to stop Olmo’s shot, which seemed cruel, almost taunting, but it wasn’t long before Leipzig did finally find a way through.
Orban dived to head an equaliser which set up a grand finale with an inevitable end. Openda’s effort six yards out hit Dani Carvajal, Sesko forced a save from Lunin, and Olmo hit the bar at the death because, well, this is the European Cup and that is Real Madrid.
