Friday night in Milan, a restaurant on the Via Vittor Pisani, a couple miles from the Duomo. Milan is athletic; on noise, on t-shirts in party. In that corner of the center madrid fans occupy several tables; with drinks coming up and they start chanting while club tables are slammed. In the room a strong man, tired and skinhead profile enters.
Looks at the funny scene with his glasses on the tip of the nose. One of the fans acknowledges him, is Adriano Galliani, Milan CEO. Galliani also recognizes him, old friends hugs given, Galliano remembers his historic friendship with Madrid, aristocratic ties between the two clubs with more European Cups (10 Madrid that night, 7 Milan).
The most successful club in history knows itself booked for 25 years, and in that time they have won every European Cup finals played.
There is no doubt that the restaurant is in the Milan side: Galliani is not just having dinner there at a table, but the walls hang two large photographs that arouse the fervor. In one, a young player named Fabio Capello lifts the European Cup pushing through a crowd; in another, Carlo Ancelotti is blanketed after getting a Champions.
Milan is the setting of the black legend of Real Madrid last recognizable soccer, genetic fingerprinting: the Madrid of the Fifth. When they lost here 5-0 in the worst European night, faced two cultures who wanted to keep the continent soccer, Míchel and Butragueño against the countercultural revolution by Sacchi led by Baresi and Rijkaard Gullit and Van Basten. The two had a pattern of play, a way to see the sport; both were a complete school of thought. Barcelona Cruyff trying to apply his own, completely different, in a template that exploded two years later in the Dream Team.
More than a quarter century has passed since then and Madrid has not engaged in a style of their own. Nothing that lasted more than two seasons. defensive, offensive, revolutionary, modern and old coaches, Spanish and foreign. Excellence, the buzzword of florentine, brought a succession of cracks and a nickname, finally: the Madrid of the Galacticos. But that had to do with the game not only with individualities; It was a harmful baptism, as Di Stefano, and after two league titles and one Champions adapting his game to all the circumstances of the constellation was absorbed by a black hole.
One test of the maddened dynamic is that in the expedition to the Star, Milan debate is how the team will play. That there was a discussion with the Fifth, that does not exist with the club. Whether or not leave Madrid for the ball, whether it be collected, if push up or stop running if the minutes. The most successful club in history has won every European Cup final that has played. In that same time period it has won seven leagues, a competition in which there is a huge gap between Barcelona, Madrid and the rest.
The numbers are those: from the Fifth the club has won two more Champions League. The explanation has to do with regularity, the famous cycles in Madrid have been struck down under the heavy expectation of Champions. And that Madrid is a club designed to win in Europe with less and less resistance, and therefore with enormous risks: also the income and the overall impact of the Cup So in the. plane back, leaving late from Milan and landed at first light on Sunday in Barajas, happiness had more to do with a compliment than anything objective. They had won the Champions League, had served a mission.
A second Cristiano Ronaldo after scoring his penalty a shadow down the stairs like an exhalation of the box. Was Enrique Cerezo, President of Atletico Madrid. Who came to the VIP area completely alone. And so he stayed a few minutes on the phone while writing until they reached the King and the Prime Minister. In Lisbon, an employee of the UEFA got 91 minutes a pallet of champagne in the red and white costumes; the pallet came out two minutes later to stay where he was.
Rarely Champions has shown no mercy in such a way as a team, against Atletico, rarely a fan base has had to endure three losses -so cruel in a final: 1974, 2014, 2016. The sense of failure expressed by Simeone amplifies a drama but also it describes, paradoxically, a change of athletic mentality is considered failure losing the final of the European Cup, including penalties. Actually it is not the statement of a sunken coach but the phrase that the defeats are now addressed at Atletico: as they have always addressed the Barcelona and Madrid, clubs for those who do not win a final is always a failure is lost as waste.
