“In this cup and in this place anything can happen,” Vinícius Júnior said, barely audible in the midst of the madness after yet another night in which it had. Real Madrid gonna Real Madrid. One hundred and 43 days after they met at Wembley, the Champions League finalists faced each other again and Borussia Dortmund scored twice in four minutes midway through the first half, the quickest team to come here and take a two-goal lead in almost 20 years, so Real Madrid went and scored five even faster. “We went in at half-time shitting ourselves but we listened, we said get one, we’ll come back again,” the Brazilian revealed, and so it was.
Madrid had gone into the dressing room 2-0 down, goals from Donyell Malen and the Reading-born Jamie Bynoe-Gittens giving Dortmund a lead they deserved. A banner before the game announced that this was Madrid’s crown and Madrid’s cup, which it always was and always will be, but at that stage it you wondered if it might just be Dortmund’s night. History, though, has warned otherwise so many times, the ridiculous now routine, and here it was repeated. Madrid win, which is what they do, and ultimately they had deserved it too; their superb second half yielding five goals and underlining their candidacy for the trophy they like to think of as their own.
