Hi ,
Battle of The Madrilènes In Milan Champions League Final
The final of this season’s Champions League will involve the same teams that contested the decider in 2014. The two last four matches have produced a tie that again brings together teams from the same city. That city is Madrid as Atletico and Real beat Bayern Munich and Manchester City in the semi-finals. The final two years ago was the first instance of one city being represented by both Champions League finalists and the Madrilènes have done it again.
There are not too many European cities that have two teams good enough to make the final of the Champions League. In England Manchester has City and United, London maybe Spurs and Arsenal and Birmingham City and Villa! The last one does seem ridiculous but Aston Villa did win the European Cup in 1981 which makes their demise more galling for fans of a certain age. Both Milan teams were champions of Europe in better days but after that no other city has two potential finalists.
Same city ties are rare even in European competition ties ahead of the final. Manchester City have never played United in Europe and the closest this season was when Liverpool played Manchester United in the Europa league. Those teams are from different cities but they are both located in the larger scale conurbation of the north west of England. So, Real v Atletico was unique two years ago and a repeat follows the precedent.
Real Madrid beat Atletico Madrid 4-1 after extra time in the final of the 2013-14 Champions League but that is only part of the story. Atletico scored in the first half and Real only levelled during injury time in the second half and settled the match with three more goals during the additional 30 minutes of play. Form was confirmed in the end but Atletico were seconds away from recording the greatest win in their history. Real Madrid have won the European Cup ten times and two years ago was the “La Decima” (tenth) and the first for twelve years.
If Atletico do finally win the Champions League they will have completed the set of the three former and existing European trophies. They won the Cup Winners Cup in the 1961-62 season and the Europa League twice in the last six years, the competition that replaced the UEFA Cup which traditionally was the secondary European competition. Chelsea, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Juventus are the only teams to have won all three of UEFA’s major club competitions.
Even though the final of this season’s Champions League is being played in Milan in effect it is a Madrid derby. Real play their home matches at the Bernabeu Stadium in a fashionable part of town while Atletico’s Vicente Calderon is south of the city in a working class area. The fixture has been stereotyped as the establishment club versus the underdog and often sees civil unrest especially when the match is played at Atletico’s ground. Atletico did not win the fixture for 13 years and but then beat their rivals twice in five months in 2013. Since then results have been more or less shared.
Diego Simeone is now almost synonymous with Atletico. He is like a conductor with his orchestra as he encourages the fans to shout even louder. In his former life he was the Argentinean player who seemed polaxed when David Beckham flicked his leg in the England v Argentina match in the 1998 World Cup in Saint Etienne that will also be remembered for the brilliant goal scored by Michael Owen. Strangely Beckham and Own played for Real Madrid so we can probably work out their allegiances in the final of this season’s Champions League.
Zinedine Zidane is the manager of Real Madrid and his background will create dilemmas for fans of France. He was one of the best players to represent that country and scored two goals when France beat Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final played in Paris. One of Atletico’s star players is Antoine Griezmann who is a key member of the current France national squad. Karim Benzema is a colleague and he plays for Real Madrid but he will not be selected for France’s squad for Euro 2016 which is also being played in France starting on June 10th. By then one half of the city of Madrid will be celebrating and the other half will be down in the dumps.
