Bayern thrashed Zidane’s side 2-2 and there is plenty to suggest a knockout blow can be landed on their elegant glass jaw
Real Madrid tried so hard to lose this semi-final. Bayern Munich tried so hard to win it. That neither could achieve this apparently shared aim speaks in the first place to Real’s pure champion will and secondly to that nexus of game-management, calamitous Bayern defending and something close to a kind of white-shirted voodoo, the ability to win even while in the process of sputtering and panting like a stalled presidential motorcade.
This was a fun, wild, oddly drunken game of football that ended 2-2 at the Bernabéu and 4-3 to Real on aggregate. At the end of which a couple of things seemed clear. Above all this was just a brilliant game. These late-stage encounters are supposed to unwind like a game of chess, a matter of grudging details. This was a more like a seasick game of quoits on the deck of a rum-sodden pirate ship, 95 minutes of half-chances, howlers and defending that seemed to have come undone at the seams like a soggy envelope.
Related: Real Madrid resist Bayern Munich onslaught after Sven Ulreich’s blunder
Related: Zinedine Zidane says it’s better for Real Madrid to suffer in win over Bayern
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