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A Champions League final under the famous Wembley arch, what more could you ask for?
On the way:
🪄 Real Madrid: Playing in white and their ‘mystical powers’
🎶 Adele, the “legal drug” and Dortmund’s new tradition
🥶 Why it’s not just about building igloos for Greenland
📽️ How Al Pacino inspired Manchester United to FA Cup glory
Who’ll Have Final Say? In the white corner: Mythical Madrid
It’ll be all white on the night, surely? Real Madrid are clear favourites to win the Champions League on Saturday and there is almost a mythical quality to their legend.
“They say at the Bernabeu (Madrid’s home stadium) there is a god and he wears a white shirt — and, who knows? Maybe that’s true,” Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti told UK newspaper The Times this week.
Some say the white kit was inspired by a London-based amateur team in the early 1900s. Others believe it’s plain old superstition: Madrid swapped navy socks for white for the European Cup’s inaugural tournament and, as we know, they went on to win it five seasons on the bounce. They now have 14 European titles, twice as many as anyone else.
This, obviously, does them a disservice — they are also very good. They have the best player in the world in Vinicius Junior, the best young player in Jude Bellingham, a solid homegrown core and supreme experienced players including Toni Kroos, who is aiming for his sixth Champions League winner’s medal — alongside team-mates Luka Modric and Dani Carvajal — before retiring, aged 34, this summer.
Madrid can land blows from all angles (though they focus their attacks down the left through Vinicius Jr, see above). Sit deep, they’ll jab through you. Press high and they’ll do damage with an uppercut of a counter — their six goals from fast breaks are more than any team in the competition this season.
We can point to supernatural powers but the reality is Madrid can punish you however they see fit.
In the yellow corner: A wall built in Dortmund
Speaking of Bellingham, how have Dortmund looked since his departure to Madrid last summer?
The Jekyll and Hyde analogy seems pertinent. Excellent in Europe, inconsistent domestically. Champions League finalists, but finishing only fifth in the Bundesliga.
Dortmund — who have just signed a three-year sponsorship deal with weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall — have their own demons to exorcise at Wembley after losing their previous Champions League final there in 2013. They will likely be on the ropes for parts of tomorrow night’s game, but they seem to be comfortable with that.
They’ve only conceded nine goals in their 12 European matches this season, keeping clean sheets in half of them. This is a team who can smother opponents by condensing all 10 outfield players into a fraction of the pitch (see below). The Yellow Wall perhaps shouldn’t be a term reserved just for their fans.
Marco Reus and Mats Hummels both played in that 2012-13 final, and the latter will be wanting to channel the frustration from that day — and missing out on the Germany squad for this summer’s Euros — into his performance.
Meanwhile, the fleet-footed duo of Julian Brandt and Jadon Sancho — whose semi-final first-leg performance will live long in the memory — and speed merchant Karim Adeyemi all have the quality to provide counter-punches of their own.
And if they win? they will play Adele, of course.
Someone Like You is a song about heartache and breakups but Dortmund are known to blast the ballad after times of victory and euphoria, it is their ‘legal drug’. They played it after beating Paris Saint-Germain in the semis and also when they won the German Cup in 2021.
And I get it. It’s slow; it’s anthemic. It’s a symbol of camaraderie, singing arm in arm with a team-mate. It’s emotional.
Head coach Edin Terzic (below) — who was in tears a year ago as Dortmund failed to clinch the Bundesliga title when it was in their hands on the season’s final day — will need his side to perform at their maximum to win but if they do emerge victorious, expect to hear a song now steeped in Dortmund tradition.
(Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
📺 Borussia Dortmund vs Real Madrid, Saturday, 3pm ET / 8pm UK — CBS, TNT Sports
United By Film: Ten Hag’s Any Given Sunday ploy pays off
To galvanise the Manchester United players ahead of their FA Cup final against Manchester City last weekend, the coaching staff played an edit of Al Pacino’s iconic speech from 1999 sports movie Any Given Sunday.
Head coach Tony D’Amato’s address to his Miami Sharks before the game that served as the film’s climax provided the voiceover to images from United’s two seasons under Erik ten Hag, with U2’s song One, playing in the background.
Whether United’s youthful squad will be aware of a film made before most of them were born or a song released in 1991 is debatable — apart from 36-year-old Jonny Evans perhaps — but it worked, as they overcame the odds to defeat their neighbours at Wembley.
Ten Hag was able to inspire confidence in his United side last week but do United fans have confidence in him? Seventy-five per cent of supporters who voted in our survey want him to remain as manager, with Mauricio Pochettino their favourite to replace the Dutchman should he leave.
Around The Athletic FC: ‘We don’t just build igloos’
Quiz Question❓
Eight players have appeared in the Champions League this season (2023-24) who also took part in the 2007-08 version — who are they?
Stuck? We’ll reveal the answer on our website here in a few hours — and in Monday’s newsletter.
Catch A Match 📺
(UK only)
UEFA Women’s Championship Qualifiers: England vs France, Friday, 8pm UK, ITV4
(U.S. only)
International Friendlies: Mexico vs Bolivia, Friday, 9pm ET — Fox Deportes/Fubo.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
Read the full article here