In the last minute of normal time in the Champions League final, David Villa won a free kick for Atlético Madrid just outside Real Madrid’s penalty area.
The Atlético fans behind the Madrid goal let out a triumphant roar. “Atleti! Atleti!” One nil up in the last minute. Madrid players screaming at the referee. A free kick on the edge of Madrid’s box, the chance to score a second, the time nearly up. They sensed it was their cup.
José Sosa sent the free kick into the arms of Iker Casillas. On the sideline, the fourth official raised the board to indicate that there would be five minutes of injury time.
Casillas, the Madrid captain and Spanish national hero, had won his first Champions League final at 19, and his second at 21. Now, at the age of 33, he was finally about to discover what it felt like to lose the biggest club game of all.
“When you’re in a final at 19, you don’t realize how important these titles really are, not just for you as a player but for your club,” he had said at the press conference the night before. “Everyone was used to us winning all the time. Now they see how difficult it is to get to the final.”
Sitting alongside Casillas at that press conference had been Sergio Ramos, the smoldering volcano of machismo who is the rock of Madrid’s defensive line. In the course of his remarks, Ramos had referred indirectly to José Mourinho, the coach with whom Madrid bitterly parted company this time last year.
Under Mourinho, Madrid had been swift, strong, and ruthless, destroying teams with lightning counter-attacks. But too often they failed against disciplined defenses who refused to give them space in behind.
The suspicion had taken root that for all their swagger and bombast, for all the supposed greatness of their individual players, Real Madrid lacked the spark of divine fire that had enabled the great Barcelona team to torch the best defenses.
There was disagreement about why this was so. The players blamed Mourinho for his negative tactics. Mourinho blamed the players for not being good enough. Casillas and Ramos had been his biggest enemies. To win the Champions League in the first year after the despised coach’s departure would be the sweetest vindication.
With five minutes to go, Mourinho was about to be proved right. After waiting 12 years to get back to the Champions League final, the players of Madrid had stumbled through the first half in a daze. They had woken up in the second half but all their attacks had foundered against Atlético’s red-and-white wall. It was a story of familiar failings.
Individually and collectively, they had blown it. Casillas had committed an embarrassing error to gift Atlético their goal. Gareth Bale, the most expensive player in the world, had squandered three great chances. Cristiano Ronaldo, theWorld Player of the Year, had been a virtual non-participant.
Each of these men was face to face with disgrace.
All they had was five more minutes.
With frenzied energy, they flung themselves forward in a final assault. They forced a corner, then another.
From this second corner, Luka Modric swept a beautiful ball high into Atlético’s penalty area. Sergio Ramos leapt and crashed the header of his life into the bottom corner of Thibaut Courtois’ net.
Madrid had failed to pick the lock, but in the end, they had battered down the door with sheer animal force.
The Madrid bench sprinted to the corner to celebrate with the players and fans. They were celebrating as though they had won the cup. At the other end of Lisbon’s Estádio da Luz, the three tiers of Atlético supporters were as silent and still as a photograph.
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