Last Updated on May 29, 2022 11:11 am by Erwin Noguera
Real Madrid is the champion of the UEFA Champions League. They won the final this Saturday for the fourteenth time in its history after beating Liverpool 1-0 in the grand final; a rival that had the best scoring chances throughout the match but that collided with a huge Thibaut Courtois and the excellent luck that Real Madrid has in this type of tournaments.
The start of the game was delayed for more than half an hour due to problems outside the stadium with the entrance of fans. Liverpool, with Thiago Alcántara playing as a starter, was faithful to its style and cornered Real Madrid with its pressure, which spent much of the game without being able to have the ball and, therefore, with the important connections between Benzema-Vinicius almost non-existent.
Kickoff
The best player at the start of the match and even of the entire match for Liverpool was Sadio Mané, who managed to appear everywhere on the pitch to make the match difficult for Real Madrid. The Senegalese had the support of only one teammate, Thiago, since neither Salah nor the Colombian Luis Díaz appeared in the match, except for some attacks after individual plays.
Despite this, Salah was the one who created the first two dangerous chances for Liverpool, but Real Madrid’s giant goalkeeper Courtois managed to stop each of the shots. Then it was Sadio Mané who was responsible for Courtois shining again in goal.
Then, Real Madrid gradually grew in its level of play thanks to Toni Kross and Luka Modric, who began to generate a very good game so that Benzema and Vinicius had chances to score. One of Real Madrid’s best chances was through an excellent pass by Alaba; which ended up inside the Liverpool goal after a shot by Benzema, but, in the end, this goal was annulled by the VAR.
Second Half
In the second half, the game took another direction, Real Madrid was much more focused on the game and managed to take control of it. Casemiro was impeccable in stopping Liverpool’s attacks and because of this, the Reds began to cease their level of play in this final.
Although Liverpool indeed continued to generate danger, Salah, Mané, and Luis Díaz could not find the formula they needed to score goals. And Real Madrid took advantage of this to do what they have become accustomed to, in a lightning attack they went up on the scoreboard, after a pass to the center of the Liverpool area by Valverde, which Vinicius later sent into the nets to score the only goal of the match.
The English team did not give up and continued to test it anyway and with all their offensive arsenal, but they faced a Real Madrid team that demonstrated the reason for their ability to survive in Europe.
Finally, Real Madrid managed to win the UEFA Champions League for the 14th time and, a very important fact is that they have managed to win the last 8 Champions League finals played, much more than those won by any other team.
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