Why do Real Madrid keep creating magic in the Champions League?

Real Madrid produced yet another memorable comeback as they knocked out Bayern Munich to reach the final and near a record-extending 15th European crown

“It’s something unexplainable,” Carlo Ancelotti said, more than once, on a night when he could have been talking about any number of elements. The Real Madrid manager was of course talking about his team’s astonishing capacity for victory in this competition.

On the other side, looking at such relentless winners, Harry Kane was struggling to work out another high-profile defeat. And that was the thing – he really looked beaten. It was impossible not to feel sorry for Kane, especially given what the scenario was as he went off with what Thomas Tuchel said was a back injury. That was the 85th minute and Bayern Munich had one foot in the final. They were 1-0 up, and Real Madrid just couldn’t seem to find a way through Manuel Neuer. He had been brilliant, which made it more inexplicable that he spilled the ball at Joselu’s feet in the crucial moment.

What must the goalscorer have been thinking? Just two years ago, the former Stoke City forward was in Paris as a fan watching Real Madrid win the Champions League final. He’s now sent them back to that stage, after scoring another goal that followed so quickly no one had time to make sense of it all.

“It happened again,” Ancelotti smiled, “what has happened so many times.”

Thomas Tuchel was furious over a late decision (Getty Images)

And yet there was still something more. There was still the most inexplicable moment of the night, which had so many elements to it that it’s hard to make sense of. Tuchel’s emotion was clear. He was furious. Mattijs de Ligt had the ball in the net for what seemed a dramatic stoppage-time equaliser but the pace of play had already indicated it was nothing like that. The assistant had flagged, the referee had whistled, and Real Madrid had stopped playing. Andriy Lunin barely made an attempt at a save.

Tuchel didn’t even try to conceal his fury. He just launched into a tirade, escalating with every question about the decision. De Ligt himself had already claimed that the assistant told him he “made a mistake” before the defender himself called it “a big, big mistake”. Tuchel went further.

“It's a huge, huge call, and it’s the wrong call.”

“I don’t know if we will know in the next 50 years why this happened.”

“It’s pretty clear... it’s against every rule of modern football what happened there.”

Tuchel is correct on the process there, especially given the protocol of the modern game has been for the assistant to wait to put up their flag. It was something else that was inexplicable.

Tuchel then came out with a more loaded comment.

“That wouldn't have happened on the other side.”

De Ligt, however, had already gone further on that one himself.

“I don't want to say that Real Madrid always has the referees with them but that made the difference today.”

There was a more magnanimous comment from the defender, however.

“Real, when you think they are dead, have a last breath… that is why they have 14 Champions Leagues.”

Joselu celebrates scoring Real Madrid’s late winner (AP)

This is true, and that is one other element that is difficult to explain – although maybe not impossible. There is obviously a self-perpetuating power to it, as we saw with Manchester United scoring late goals under Sir Alex Ferguson. The knowledge they can do it empowers a side throughout games and then goes to another level in the most important moments, with that in turn causing doubt in the opposition. These little things can grow into something huge at the end of such games, as we’ve repeatedly seen.

It’s like that line from Catch Me If You Can multiplied several times over. Why do the Yankees always win? “Because the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.”

The white of Real Madrid can be blinding, for a number of reasons. Ancelotti meanwhile spoke of the “weight” of that shirt as he went into something deeper on why this keeps happening.

“Real Madrid is a family, that is very well managed by the president. It’s a football club with history, tradition and weight, and the ones wearing this shirt, it’s very important for them.”

The mention of the president was all the more conspicuous because Ancelotti brought him up a few times, to a degree that was uncomfortably obsequious for a manager normally so lauded for his cool detachment.

“There’s a captain here called Florentino Perez, and all the rest of us are sailors. The captain is Florentino, a fantastic president, who’s been capable of creating a generation of footballers that have achieved a lot of things and can now achieve another Champions League.”

If so – and, given all of this, it really is difficult to expect much of Borussia Dortmund – it would be Perez’s personal seventh and the club’s 15th European title. That would be more than double the next club, AC Milan, who have seven, almost rendering the record a joke.

Carlo Ancelotti hailed Madrid president Florentino Perez (Reuters)

And yet there is a lot of explanation for that. While Madrid have always been one of Europe’s most powerful and wealthy clubs, Perez has been utterly obsessed with keeping them at the top. That goes beyond astute squad building that is now far superior to either Galactico era. Responding to the threat of state-linked clubs like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, Perez realised his club weren’t the great white shark of the food chain any more and empowered Brazilian head of recruitment Juni Calafat to go about things in a different way. That has created this vibrant young squad.

But there was more to it than that. In every single Uefa or major club meeting, Perez has refused to accept anything that isn’t for the better of Real Madrid. They have led virtually every major decision that has ensured more and more prize money to the biggest clubs. The most influential of these was in 2016, and a moment when they were joined with Bayern Munich rather than opposing them. With Michel Platini having resigned as Uefa president, the two clubs used the vacuum to ensure that 30 per cent of all Champions League prize money went to clubs based on historic performance over 10 years. It was essentially “royalties”.

In practical terms, it meant Newcastle United were this season only guaranteed £1-3m from that source but Manchester City were guaranteed £30m. Over a few years, and combined with other measures, this really builds up to create insurmountable gaps. It has directly led to this situation where it is usually the same clubs in the Champions League latter stages, and where Borussia Dortmund – 12th richest club in the world, one of the 15 invited to the Super League – can rightly be considered underdogs. This is in large part how Madrid are maybe on the brink of a 15th victory.

It was that threat of the Super League that was most explicitly used to secure those reforms in 2016, with Bayern’s Karl Heinz Rummenigge even admitting as much to Der Spiegel a few years later.

Florentino Perez has been pushing to form a new Super League (AP)

It maybe leads to one other inexplicable element.

“It's special for us, this competition,” Ancelotti said. If so, why is the president he was almost falling over himself to praise still trying to destroy it through the Super League? It’s all the more remarkable since Perez has largely created the world he wants. Madrid now sit in a spectacularly modern NFL-style stadium that houses one of the most vibrant young sides in the world, and they regularly win the biggest trophies.

They’re now on the brink of another. It isn’t that hard to explain.