Real Madrid bask in prolonged Champions League celebrations as Gareth Bale sets sights on Euro 2016 tilt
Bale scored in Real's penalty shootout victory over Atletico Madrid to secure his second Champions League title in three years
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Your support makes all the difference.It must have felt like ‘no sleep ‘til the Euros’ for Gareth Bale this weekend as the man who faces England in two-and-half weeks’ time partied the night away from Saturday in Milan to Sunday in Madrid, following his club’s Champions League final win on penalties.
“Honestly, I thought I was going to be nervous but when I stepped up I wasn’t nervous at all,’ he said of his successful penalty kick in the shoot-out. “I felt literally nothing, it was very strange. It was when I got back to the half-way line afterwards that I thought: ‘oh my God’.”
It will have dawned on him in that moment that for the second time in three years at Real Madrid he had scored in a victorious Champions League final.
“I came to the biggest club in the world to win this competition but it is very difficult to achieve and to do it twice in three years is an amazing feat.”
He had been Real Madrid’s best attacking player on the night with more shots on target than any of his team-mates. Now he has England in his sights.
“I feel like I am playing very well at the moment and my confidence is even higher now after this,” he said. “I am looking forward to the Euros and meeting up with Wales.”
Bale has Monday off to recover from the celebrations. Madrid touched down back at the city’s Barajas Airport at 6am on Sunday and were taken on the team bus to the Cibeles Fountain where tradition dictates that the captain offers the trophy to the Godess.
It was cold and wet and fans had been gathered there since midnight so by the time Sergio Ramos climbed the especially-assembled scaffolding with the cup, crowds had thinned.
The players then visited both of Madrid’s two town halls before they finished the marathon celebration in the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday night.
Optimistic Wales fans will now be wondering if Bale could lead them to shock glory in what is a remarkably open European Championship. Asked about that and about how his fitness might stand up to so many games he said: “There are four or five days between matches and we play every two or three days for our clubs so I am confident that I will be fit enough, firing, and then you never know; two trophies in a matter of months…”
I said to Zizou when he asked me what number to put me: ‘I want to take the last penalty’
Ronaldo might also fancy his chances of making his mark in France. He said after the game that he never doubted he would get the last decisive kick of the season.
“I said to Zizou [Zinedine Zidane] when he asked me what number to put me: ‘I want to take the last penalty’. It was because I had the feeling that penalty number five was going to be the winning kick and that is the way it happened.”
Ronaldo has now won two of his three European Cups on penalties and he said he did not let memories of his miss in Moscow with Manchester United in 2008 affect him as he took another shoot-out spot-kick in front of a watching Sir Alex Ferguson. “I never doubted,” he said. “It was special to win it with United and again two years ago with Real Madrid.”
Asked if he would be in the Portugal team to face England on Thursday he said: “No come on! Let me rest my legs.”
Rest was also on Diego Simeone’s mind. The Atletico Madrid coach looked mentally drained after the game. He refused to blame the offside Sergio Ramos goal saying: “I don’t believe in injustice in football. The best team wins.” And he called his second final defeat in three years “a failure”.
When Atletico Madrid were beaten in the Lisbon final in 2014, full-back Juanfran told his team-mates: “We are not going to be sad; we are going to reach another European Cup final.” But this time there was more a sense that the Simeone cycle had spun its course.
Atletico Madrid supporters will hope that is not the case; that when he said he planned to go away and think about his future it was the disappointment talking; and that he will be back to fight another day.
Some of his players will maybe not get another chance to win a European final. Fernando Torres did not want to leave the pitch at the end of the game. Atletico Madrid’s brilliant captain Gabi had long since waved his team-mates back into the dressing room after they had respectfully stayed while Real Madrid lifted the trophy.
But Torres was left staring back at the fast emptying Curva Nord where Milan supporters had applauded him during his brief spell in Italy and from where Atletico Madrid fans had sung their hearts out at another European Cup final only to lose it once more in the cruellest fashion.
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