Almost 12 years ago, Real Madrid clinched La Decima against Atletico Madrid – a record 10th Champions League title.
Incredibly, in those dozen years since, they’ve added another five to their collection, most recently in 2023/24.
But the significance of the landmark tenth, against their rivals, in a dramatic extra-time victory, is something that has stuck with Los Blancos ever since.
Marcelo unpacks the secret to Real Madrid’s Champions League supremacy
Diego Godin opened the scoring for Atleti and, right up until the third minute of stoppage-time, it looked like being the decisive goal in what would have been a first-ever Champions League.
That was, until a last-gasp bullet header from Sergio Ramos sent those dreams crashing to the ground, and the sides into extra-time, where Gareth Bale, Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo put Atleti’s dream out of its misery.
🗣️ "I told myself, 'It can’t end like this.'"2⃣ Sergio Ramos added to his crucial goals against Bayern in the semi-finals, forcing extra time with a last-gasp equaliser in Lisbon against rivals Atlético. 'La Décima' would become reality 🏆@SergioRamos | @realmadriden | #UCL pic.twitter.com/sGC7BMlNgTMarch 24, 2021
“It was a night of contrasts,” Marcelo tells FourFourTwo now. “I’d been a starter in the previous few matches and was convinced I’d start, however Carlo Ancelotti opted for Fabio Coentrao.
“It was an enormous disappointment as I felt ready. I wasn’t angry with the coach, but upset not to be in the starting XI. During the warm-up, Isco told me, ‘Relax – we’re going to make history.’
“With space opening up, everything turned in our favour an I scored a memorable goal – a toe-poke finish, just as I’d learned in futsal.”
People will often ponder what special ingredient a team like Los Blancos have to keep winning football’s biggest prizes so regularly, but for Marcelo, it’s simple.
“We had three things: luck, humility and hard work,” he said.
“Luck, in not having suffered serious injuries and in always having, for many years, the best players, as well as coaches who managed the dressing room well.
“We went from Ancelotti, who handled the group excellently, to Zinedine Zidane – with both, the ones who didn’t play were satisfied and the ones who played were also satisfied. The key was humility to understand we had to do more than what we’d already done in order to win.”
Put like that, it seems simple. But Real’s achievement that night, with significant help from Marcelo, was anything but easy.
