Unremitting Madrid continue love affair

REAL Madrid turned to the same old story in the Champions League, and even though Bayern Munich knew all the words, they were powerless to stop the kings of Europe pulling off another improbable and yet inevitable comeback.

Joselu’s late double fired the record 14-time winners into the Wembley final on June 1, just as it seemed Bayern had set up another all-German battle as in 2013.

Madrid’s Jude Bellingham will face his former team Borussia Dortmund in search of the 15th, after Los Blancos returned from what he described as being “dead and buried” to triumph 2-1 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate at the Santiago Bernabeu.

“We saw ourselves in the final, and now I’m lost for words,” said shell-shocked Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

“Madrid are immortal,” wrote Spanish newspaper Marca. “The eternal miracle,” proclaimed another capital publication, AS.

Madrid will be firm favourites to extend their dominance in Europe after reaching their sixth Champions League final in the past 11 years and winning five of the past 10. Regardless of whether they are outplayed – as by Manchester City in the quarter-finals – or on the verge of elimination, as against Bayern, Madrid so often find a way where other teams would wither.

Alphonso Davies’s second-half strike had Bayern dreaming of a 2013 final rematch against Bundesliga rivals Dortmund, but journeyman forward Joselu intervened in the dying embers of the match.

“It’s happened again – it’s happened so often,” marvelled Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti, a four-time winner of the trophy as a coach. “Fans who push us on, a fantastic stadium, players who never stop believing – it’s simply something magical.”

Final opponents Dortmund have lifted the trophy on just one occasion, back in 1997, and few will give them a chance against the might of Madrid.