The Belgian goalkeeper completed the final miracle of a Champions League with an anthological performance so incredible that even the final started more than half an hour late due to the collapse caused by thousands of ticketless Liverpool fans
If this Champions League of miracles or of Real Madrid’s great competitive and quality lessons has shown anything, depending on the reflection of the colors with which it is viewed, it is that the king of sport is most against technology, against reason , common sense and even safety. In times of ‘big data’, heatmaps, algorithms and artificial intelligence, everything is monitored and uncertainty in decision-making is minimized, but in the end it is almost always the details that make the difference. To the point that this final was postponed by 37 minutes due to serious security concerns at the entrances of Liverpool fans, 40,000 of them moved without tickets.
At the scheduled time, a red tide flooded the rim of the stadium. Inside big holes in the ‘net’ area. An organizational disaster, a serious inconvenience for professionals and another example that almost nothing is controllable in football. Embarrassed by the attitude of the English to their avalanche attempts, the French police and stadium security outranked UEFA again, chaired by Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin. Very eventful this edition of the biggest football club competition, in solfa since that draw of 16 that had to be repeated because of a mess with the balls. It is also unbelievable that the Liverpool bus got stuck on its way to the Stade de France and that the grass, planted last autumn in Olot (Girona), was installed in the Paris stadium between Tuesday and Wednesday. As Jürgen Klopp complained the day before, the grass is somewhat uneven, not the best for a fast game.
Modernity serves to conclude whether a signing or loss is useful, choose a type of elf, design workouts, tactics and strategies and even generate endless news based on boring data journalism, but the designs of football, and what surrounds him, they remain inscrutable. Just as the VAR is a huge help to the umpires and avoids historic scandals, but ultimately the resolutions come at the expense of each judge’s interpretation. A disallowed goal by Karim Benzema turned out to be offside just before half-time, despite the ball coming from Fabinho, an opponent. interference? bounce back? Nobody understands it.
In short, there is no machine, program or system capable of predicting the milestones that Carlo Ancelotti’s team will crown against PSG, Chelsea and Manchester City. If the hackneyed percentages of possession have been clashing time and again with the results and exacerbating the style differences between the coaches, what about those absurd numbers that regard a shot on goal as a pass into the hands of the keeper and not a clear chance because the ball goes out. If he were still among us, the wise Luis Aragonés would keep bringing his hands to his head whenever there were assists, in the purest basketball style, not goals. Or static attacks. A pure contradiction.
Football is so unpredictable, and therefore so grand, that it struggles with the laws of logic. Had it been for the cold numbers, Madrid would have been beaten by Kylian Mbappe’s PSG in the round of 16. But the power of the mind conquered, the gigantic stature of Courtois, the colossal punch of Benzema, the shit of the opponents at the sight of the goal close to the Bernabeu and, why deny, the well-watered flower of Ancelotti. So until the big event in Paris, the most repeated final in history. A duel between two clubs with ancient ancestors far removed from sheikhs and emirs, two teams united by their mystique and the fetishism of the European Cup.
In the previous one, Carlo Ancelotti’s smile was the reflection of the soul; his voice, that of experience. Klopp, on the other hand, reflected tension. Carletto took a nap for an hour, but his team arrived at the Stade de France earlier. The ‘red’ army was delayed, victim of improvisation and Parisian traffic. In the warm-up, Thiago was not feeling well, but he took the risk to play. After a long half hour of uncertainty from the anger outside, hostilities finally broke out. The ‘reds’ impose a furious pace, but Courtois supports Madrid. Avoid two shots from Salah and Mane with a goal. The Belgian, first key. The Spanish champion wants more rest, more control, a long game. On his first appearance, Benzema scored on a defensive error, but the goal didn’t make it to the scoreboard. Second decisive moment of the final. The third, fifteen minutes into the second half. Valverde’s shot becomes a center and Vinicius does not forgive. It was the second approach to Madrid. It was time to resist. Thibaut moment, fortunately “on the right side of history”. “The rivals know that when Madrid reach a final, they win it.” Eight finals have already been played and won since the seventh. The fourteenth had its logic, that of Real Madrid.
Source: La Verdad
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