“In this cup and in this place anything can happen,” Vinícius Júnior said, barely audible in the midst of the madness and all the noise after yet another night in which it had. Real Madrid gonna Real Madrid. One hundred and 43 days after they met at Wembley the Champions League finalists met again and Borussia Dortmund scored twice in 35 minutes, the fastest team to come here and score two here in almost 20 years, so Real Madrid went and scored five even quicker. “We went in at half-time shitting ourselves but we listened, we said get the first, we’ll come back again,” the Brazilian revealed at the end, and so it was.
Madrid had gone in 2-0 down, goals from Donyell Malen and the Reading-born Jamie Bynoe-Gittens putting Dortmund into a lead they had deserved. A banner at the south end before the game announced that this was Madrid’s crown and Madrid’s cup but at that stage it you wondered if it might be Dortmund’s night. History though has warned otherwise so many times and here it was repeated. Goals from Antonio Rüdiger, Lucas Vázquez and a hat-trick from Vinícius doing it again, delirium taking hold of this place, a 5-2 victory met with chants of “this is how Madrid win!” Well, quite.
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In the end it had all been thunder but the touch that started it all was glorious, so soft, so subtle, it was as if Serhou Guirassy had worn carpet slippers to Santiago Bernabéu. An €18m summer signing from Stuttgart, he arrived here having scored seven goals in as many games, but this time he wasn’t going to shoot; instead, he received a loose ball in the area with his back to Rüdiger, controlled and didn’t so much kick it as sweep it, on the turn, across the turf. The gap between Rudiger and Ferland Mendy was closing but not fast enough. And there was Malen, alone in front of Thibaut Courtois to open the scoring.
The goal they couldn’t score in London, Dortmund got in Madrid, and soon they had a second, the lead doubled just after the half hour. No one had come here and done this to Real Madrid as fast for 18 years. Again, the goal was superbly done; again, it is true, Madrid were slow to react, sliced open easily. Given space, Julian Brandt began it, finding Malen on the right, who surged past Mendy to the byline and pulled it back across the six-yard box. There, heading in on a diagonal dash from the right wing that Vázquez didn’t see until it was too late, was Gittens to finish.
At 20 years and 75 days, Gittens had just become the youngest Englishman ever to score against Madrid. The look on his face spoke to what this moment meant and, pointing now, he thanked Malen for giving it to him. Then he blew off the smoke from his finger pistols, wearing a sharpshooter’s smile. Éder Militão clenched his fists, covered his face and then beat the turf, unable to believe this. By the end, it would be even harder to comprehend except through the inevitability of the team they faced.
From the Bernabéu came whistles which did at least wake the hosts up. As if they had needed something to fight against, some jeopardy to get going, Madrid immediately created chances. Jude Bellingham had the first of them. Vinícius’s long speared pass found him alone, well beyond the Dortmund defence, only Gregor Kobel standing before him. His header, though, went straight at the keeper. If that should have ended up in the net, it was hard to believe that neither of the chances that followed straight after it did not.
Rodrygo controlled on his chest, turned and volleyed a shot against the bar. The ball dropped to Bellingham who smashed it back in the same direction. Again, it hit the bar, bouncing down on to the line and out. Where, almost as quickly, it was sent back towards the line again. This time it would have been a bizarre own goal, Brandt sending the ball looping towards the goal – or maybe even the frame again – where he was rescued by Kobel. Dortmund had survived three near misses in as many seconds. If that would have been game on, it was almost game over in the very next minute, Courtois flying to make a superb save from Brandt’s shot.
Madrid departed to whistles at half-time and reappeared to them too but they would be replaced by roars, that we’re after you now noise the Bernabéu does, soundtrack to countless comebacks. Listless before, there was life now: aggression, pace, an intent. Kobel saved from Vázquez and then from Vinícius, the storm starting to stir. While Malen was denied by Courtois, Dortmund were starting to look for refuge deeper into their area, Nuri Sahin’s decision to replace Gittens with defender Waldemar Anton serving only to invite the siege. And when Rüdiger thudded in a header from Kylian Mbappé’s cross on 59 minutes, the lid was taken off, the volume rising, that feeling returning.
Oh they’re coming, alright. Two minutes later, they arrived, the equaliser celebrated twice. Mbappé had gone down inside the right side of the area and the ball ran to Vinícius, who put it into an open net. The flag was up, the eruption put on hold. The wait was long, but it was worth it, the goal given back. They had been playing less than 20 minutes of the second half and Madrid had racked up 10 shots already and weren’t about to stop now; Dortmund, overwhelmed, only wished they would.
It did seem that Dortmund might have weathered the worst of the storm; in fact, for one brief moment they could actually have won this. Which, when you face Real Madrid, tends to be the moment in which you lose it, and so it proved.
With nine minutes left, they ventured out, Maximilian Beier, Brandt and Emre Can leading them up the field, space opening before them. The move went from right to left and back again, Beier eventually turning near the top of the six-yard box and firing at goal, only for Courtois to somehow save with his foot. Forty-six seconds later, Vázquez was at the other end, smashing the ball beyond Kobel at the near post, the finish as good as the Rodrygo’s run to keep the move alive. There was still time for Vinícius to score two more, to add to the madness. Dortmund were done; Madrid were not. Madrid never are.
