UEFA Champions League Final 2022: When experience was the 'Real' deal

Real Madrid’s triumph in the Champions League Final last weekend, was one of the most interesting ones in recent memory.

Most years, Real Madrid would have started as one of the favourites for this competition; their record in the Champions League is staggering. But over the last few years, many felt this side was in decline. Due to one reason or another, there were no exciting young signings made. The core of the team was an aging one. Experts were always predicting how other sides would run them ragged.

And they did for long periods in crunch games. But where muscle and legs failed, the power of the mind took over.

There were a few things still in the Real side, which many, especially in hindsight, would be willing to now trade the impetuosity and promise of youth for. Perhaps none more vital than the value of experience. 

To make a point, six players who started for Real in the final against Liverpool, had won the Champions League MORE THAN ONCE: Benzema, Kroos, Modric, Casemiro, Carvajal, and Alaba (with Bayern). Alaba aside, the rest were also part of the incredible ‘three-peat’ Real had managed with their triumphs in 16, 17 and 18. 

That elusive ‘know how’ was something absolutely priceless.

Real had the toughest draw in years for any champion-especially in the knockout stages. PSG, followed by Chelsea. Then, they ran into Man City in the semi-finals and Liverpool in the final. Each of these teams was a prospective champion. For the larger part of time in these fixtures Real was on the backfoot. And yet, they held on. 

They knew and recognized the value in just staying in the game. They had been around for too long, to think their chance would not come. And when it did, they were clinical.

Perhaps the midfield trio-Kroos, Casemiro and Modric, were most emblematic of this mindset. Plying their craft in an area of the pitch, marked by the most hustle and bustle; these three made a pertinent case for going down in history as one of the greatest units of all time. This being their FOURTH Champions League triumph playing together. 

They dropped deep. They sometimes just cleared the ball. They read the plays magnificently. And every once a while, they played around the building pressure brilliantly, using guile and wile accumulated over the years, mized with no small amount of skill. 

The final turned on one moment, which the trained eye of one of these midfield maestros sighted. Going the wrong way-running towards his own goal, with the ball at his feet, Modric might have scrolled quickly through his ‘experience file’ collated over the years, to realize this was a moment to deliver the perfect sucker punch. He drew two Liverpool players with him, perhaps lulling them into feeling this was their opportunity to snatch the ball high up the pitch, and try and score. 

But Modric had been warding off such attempts for years.

A slight nod to his veteran right back Dani Carvajal and the decisive move of the match was kindled. Modric reversed the ball changing the pattern of play to Carvajal who found Valverde further down the wing. Valverde fired a cross across the face of the goal. And the young Vinicius Jr. scored the winner. He had his name up in lights, but the power connection had been sparked by truly old hands. 

Liverpool looked beaten after that.

Real’s whole journey was a tribute to the value of high-quality experience. It was an ode to the feeling of calmness of having been there before, and knowing what it takes. Other than the playing team, their manager Carlo Ancelotti also had bags of experience at the Champions League, having three prior triumphs, and now going clear of everyone by landing his fourth one. He remained a beacon of poise and control, even when it looked like his team were on the way out.

To conclude Real’s triumph might have been their most satisfying one of all their recent ones. Mainly because no one gave them much of a chance. When the tournament began, and later as the knockout draws kept being made. 

But there is a huge merit in ‘having been there and done that’, and this came to the fore, as the famed team in whites, successively left many of its rivals feeling the blues.

(Vinay Kanchan is the author of ‘Sportivity’, ‘Lessons from the Playground’ & ‘The Madness Starts at 9’. He is the patron saint of Juhu Beach United, a footballing movement which celebrates the ‘unfit, out-of-breath working person of today’.)

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