History was made at Wembley Stadium on Saturday, as Carlo Ancelotti guided his Real Madrid side to a record-extending 15th UEFA Champions League title. It confirmed the air of inevitability that has shadowed this team for the past decade – despite being dominated by Borussia Dortmund in the first half, individual excellence shone through in the end.
Dani Carvajal’s opener was perhaps the reward that the right-back deserved for a stunning defensive performance throughout, and when Vinícius Júnior added the second of the evening soon after, there was no way back for the German outfit. Any hope they may have been afforded through a late Niclas Füllkrug strike was short-lived, with the forward adjudged to be offside.
Addressing the gathered media at Wembley Stadium after the match, Ancelotti expressed that Real Madrid needed “sacrifice and quality” to win their fifteenth UEFA Champions League title – stressing that “one of the two is not enough, you need both ingredients.”
Embed from Getty ImagesAfter a historic season that also saw los Merengues lay claim to yet another LaLiga title, the 64-year-old suggested that he would “rate ourselves as a 10/10… this season has been a 10/10 because we could manage it really well until the end.”
“This squad makes me very satisfied because we never give up. We always fight until the end. In the dressing room at the end of the first half, we were quite calm,” insisted Ancelotti, who added that he “didn’t need to get angry” during the interval.
“I needed to clarify a few things because it was pretty clear how Dortmund wanted to play. They did a fantastic game in transition and we lost our balance a bit… the players talked amongst themselves, we talked about changing the system together – it wasn’t my decision alone.”