Great Madrid Wins Again, Confirms Its Soccer Supremacy in Europe
Great Madrid Wins Again, Confirms Its Soccer Supremacy in Europe.
Real Madrid Logo
The soccer match between Liverpool Football Club of England and Real Madrid Football Club of Spain today May 28, 2022, was the final match of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League organised by the Union of European Football Associations, UEFA.
For record purposes, it was the 67th season of Europe’s premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 30th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs’ Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
Today’s final was a record-third time that Liverpool and Madrid would meet in the final after 1981 final played at the Parc des Princes, Paris, France, which ended 1-0 in favour of Liverpool, and the 2018 edition held at the Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex, Kyiv, Ukraine, which Real Madrid won 3–1.
Today’s encounter was the sixth time a Spanish side met an English team in the final of the competition. The previous occasions were in 1981, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2018.
And finally, today’s match was the first final to be played in front of full attendance, of 75,000 people since 2019 final, as the previous two finals were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony for today’s game at Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France, was graced by the Cuban-born American singer, Camila Cabello, who performed five of her songs: Señorita, La Buena Vida, Havana, Bam Bam, and Don’t Go Yet.
The First-Half Analysis
The match was billed to take off by 21:00, French local time, but was delayed for about thirty-six (36) minutes, due to security reasons.
Trouble started when crowd control descended into chaos at the entrances to the Stade de France as thousands of Liverpool fans were struggling to move inside the stadium.
Up till the time of writing this post, Liverpool fans and supporters, across the world, are still crying foul over what they described as the “high-handedness” of the French police on that day.
The match finally kicked off after thirty-something minutes of delay, with Liverpool making dangerous attempts at Madrid’s goal area.
The intelligent combination of Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah, in the 16th minute of the game, was thwarted by Madrid’s goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, who saved the situation for his side.
Liverpool’s duo of Thiago Alcântara and Sadio Mané made another dangerous move five minutes later, but was saved again by Courtois, who later became “Man of the Match.”
Liverpool’s third dangerous attempt initiated by Alexander-Arnold, in the 34th minute, got to Salah whose header went straight into the waiting hands of Courtois.
Madrid’s captain, Karim Benzema, made an attempt towards the dangerous area of Liverpool, two minutes before half-time, but was stopped by Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konaté.
Confusion by Liverpool goalkeeper, Alisson Becker, and one of his defenders almost created a chance for Madrid’s Federico Valverde to wreak havoc, but the trouble was averted with the intervention of their teammate Fabinho.
Benzema scored a goal against Liverpool, a few minutes later, but the goal was disallowed by the assistant referee, and later confirmed by the video assistant referee, VAR, after a check, which lasted for three minutes and 20 seconds.
The result of the check confirmed that Benzema was in an offside position when the ball came to him.
However, there was a controversy as to whether the last touch off of Fabinho was intentional or not, but the ‘no goal’ rule by the referee stood.
The first half ended after three minutes of stoppage time.
The Second-Half Analysis
The second half of the game started with Liverpool continuing with their incursions into the vital areas of their opponents.
Nine minutes into the second half, Alexander-Arnold sent a cross into Madrid’s penalty area.
His teammate Thiago headed the ball towards the goal but was securely punched away by the man-mountain Courtois.
All the beautiful efforts of Liverpool were overturned in the 59th minute, when Madrid took the lead against the run of play, to make it 1-0 in their favour.
Vinicius Junior’s lone goal that downed Liverpool in the 2022 UEFA Champions League final
The move was initiated by Madrid’s Valverde, who made a run with the ball on the right-hand side of the field of play.
While still with the ball, Valverde looked up, found Vinícius Júnior, and gave a low cross pass to him which he cleverly put behind the net, leaving Alisson stranded and dumbfounded.
Real Madrid celebrates its victory over Liverpool in the 2022 Champions League final
The first and only booking of the night was issued to Liverpool’s Fabinho in the 62nd minute by the French centre referee, Clément Turpin, for a challenge on Valverde.
Liverpool made several frantic efforts to pull back their deficit, but all those efforts proved abortive as Courtois, who was determined to make sure that his team went home with the contested trophy, thwarted them all.
Real Madrid’s Luka Modric kisses the trophy after winning the Champions League final football match against Liverpool at the Stade de France near Paris on May 28, 2022 [Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP]
The first change of the night was made by Liverpool in the 65th minute when Luis Díaz came off for Diogo Jota.
Madrid almost made it two in the 75th minute, from a free-kick taken by Toni Kroos, but that effort was wasted.
In a bid to fortify their squad and re-invigorate themselves, Liverpool pulled out Thiago and captain Jordan Henderson and brought in Naby Keïta and Roberto Firmino.
That happened in the 77th minute.
Madrid made their first change of the match, eleven minutes later, replacing Eduardo Camavinga with Valverde.
Five minutes were added to the stoppage time, with Madrid still leading.
For consolidation purposes, Madrid made two more substitutions in stoppage time, bringing in Dani Ceballos and Rodrygo Silva and removing Luka Modrić and the goal-scorer, Vinícius Junior.
The score-line remained 1-0 at the end of the match, meaning that Madrid had carried the day.
More Records Worth Taking Note Of
I gave you some records in the opening paragraphs of this piece.
Below are additional records about the two sides, Liverpool and Real Madrid, as well as about their coaches, that are worth taking note of.
Let’s get started with the additional records!
Real Madrid
With that victory, Real Madrid secured a record-extending 14th title in the European Cup/Champions League – 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1966, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022.
The club has won twice as many titles as the next-best team, AC Milan, who have won it on seven (7) occasions.
Madrid, has, by their record of 14 titles in the UEFA Champions League confirmed their supremacy of being the most UEFA Champions League decorated team in entire Europe.
Liverpool
Liverpool Football Club, on the other hand, has not done badly in the UEFA Champions League competition, having won it in 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005, and 2019.
Carlo Ancelotti
Ancelotti lost to Liverpool as a player in 1984 when he was a player with the Italian side, Roma.
Today’s encounter between Liverpool and Real Madrid was the third final for him as a manager against Liverpool. The other two occasions were the 2005 and 2007 finals.
This night’s victory, however, made Carlo Ancelotti the first manager to win four Champions League titles: 2003, 2007, 2014, and now, 2022.
Jürgen Klopp
Liverpool’s manager, Jürgen Klopp, has a record of one title in the UEFA Champions League competition, which was his 2018-19 victory with Liverpool against another English side, Tottenham Hotspur.
He has the other hand, equalled Marcello Lippi for most losses in Champions League finals, having lost with Borussia Dortmund in 2013 and Liverpool in 2018.
Carlos Henrique Casemiro, Dani Carvajal, Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez (Isco), Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema, Luka Modrić, Marcelo Vieira, Nacho Fernández, and Toni Kroos.
The above nine players secured their fifth Champions League title with Real Madrid’s current victory.
While eight of them, Carlos Henrique Casemiro, Dani Carvajal, Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez (Isco), Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema, Luka Modrić, Marcelo Vieira, and Nacho Fernández, won it with Madrid’s win in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022, Toni Kroos won his first title with Bayern Munich in 2013, before winning with Real in 2016, 2017, 2018, and now, 2022.
By this record, the nine of them have equaled the record of Portugal-born Cristiano Ronaldo, who has also won the title on five different occasions.
Thibaut Courtois
Apart from his other soccer titles, Thibaut Courtois, Real Madrid’s current number-one goalkeeper, hasn’t done much in UEFA Champions League, with regards to titles.
Today’s victory, by his club, was his first-ever UEFA Champions League title.
In addition to that, Courtois was deservedly chosen as the man of the match, having made nine saves in that single game.
His total of 59 saves during the entire 2021-22 Champions League campaign also set a new Champions League single-season record.
In all, congrats to Real Madrid for making it 14 titles in the UEFA Champions League competition, twice as many titles as the next-best team, AC Milan, who have won it on seven (7) occasions.
Great Madrid Wins Again, Confirms Its Soccer Supremacy in Europe. THE END.
By Martins Appiah
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