Real Madrid resoundingly restated its case as the world’s best soccer club on Saturday, getting two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and outclassing the Italian champion Juventus, 4-1, in the Champions League final in Cardiff, Wales.
The victory made Real Madrid the first team to repeat in the Champions League era, and the first to win consecutive titles in the competition since A.C. Milan in 1989 and 1990, when the tournament was known as the European Cup.
Real Madrid’s title was its 12th, extending its record, and its third in four years.
Ronaldo scored in each half, and on similar plays — clinical finishes inside the penalty area after he had found a pocket to receive a pass from a teammate on the right wing. Casemiro scored Madrid’s second goal, on a 30-yard shot that deflected off the heel of a Juventus defender, and the 21-year-old substitute Marco Asensio added the capper by turning in a cross in the 90th minute.
Mario Mandzukic scored a memorable goal for Juventus on a scissoring shot midway through the first half, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Juventus lost in the final for the seventh time, another record. It was the third defeat in the final for Gianluigi Buffon, its veteran goalkeeper, and denied the 39-year-old fan favorite the one title he covets most in his career.
And it’s worth noting that the Champions League trophy will be presented not in the stands, but on the field. It’s a change instituted by Aleksandar Ceferin, the UEFA president, who felt it’s more appropriate for the grandees of the game to go to the players — the actual stars — rather than the other way round.
The fourth goal does not come from Gareth Bale, the returning hero, but from the home-grown star. Marco Asensio taps in from close range, adding a gloss to the score-line that feels a little harsh on Juventus. This second half will haunt the Italian champion for some while: it has crumbled when the pressure mounted, something all that experience it has marshaled in defense was supposed to guard against. Many Italian fans had left the stadium before Felix Brych’s whistle confirmed that Real Madrid, once again, is champion of Europe.
As the Juventus hopes fade, the fouls pile up. Alex Sandro and Cuadrado pick up yellows in quick succession, and Real Madrid start to pass quicker and quicker — showing off just how good they are, but also staying one step ahead of the ankle-whackers. That opened up the game nicely, to flowing attacks and, perhaps soon, a fourth Madrid goal.
Full credit must go to Zinedine Zidane, who obviously ordered Isco and Marcelo to get going down the left, and that adjustment changed the game. Zidane, who won this trophy as a player with Madrid and in his first year as coach last season, would be the first manager to lead a team to back to back championships. It helps, of course, to have Madrid’s payroll, but that can make it harder, too.
