Champions League | Real Madrid join Liverpool in the final

(Madrid) Immortal Real Madrid! Thanks to the inevitable Karim Benzema, the “King of Europe” signed another extraordinary comeback on Wednesday in his den of Santiago-Bernabéu to overthrow Manchester City 3-1 in extra time (4-3 defeat in the first leg) and join Liverpool in the Champions League final on May 28 at the Stade de France.

Left for dead after Riyad Mahrez’s opener (73^and) which gave Skyblues a two-goal lead in aggregate, Real overturned a mountain again with their young Brazilian prodigy Rodrygo, who entered in the 68^and and author of two goals in the space of a few seconds (90^and90^and+1) to push the game into overtime.

And at the 95^andthe hero Karim Benzema entered the scene: silent and imprecise until then, the Madrid prince found his cape and converted a penalty he himself caused to propel Real into the final, before giving up his place ( 104^and).

“It’s crazier (than qualifying against Paris SG and Chelsea) because it lasted until the last moment, until the 90^and and the 92^and minute… I can’t explain it, it’s unbelievable. When it’s 1-1 and the referee adds six minutes, you know that anything is possible,” exulted goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois at the final whistle.

Madrid’s “magic night” began in the 90^and : as demanded by the Merengue supporters in the banner deployed before kick-off alongside the tifo bearing the image of the French centre-forward, the stunning “White House” drew on its reserves to offer hope, then glory.

The odyssey continues

As the match quietly headed towards an English qualifier, Real woke up at the last minute to offer themselves a repeat of the 2018 final in Kyiv, where the team then led by Zinédine Zidane had won their third in the Champions League (3-1), in a match marked by the blunders of goalkeeper Loris Karius.

The two goals scored by Rodrygo woke up the Madrid public, who took up their perpetual refrain even more: “Si se puede! (“Yes, it is possible!”, in Spanish).

This is the first time that Real Madrid have managed to qualify after losing the first leg of a semi-final on the continental stage. Previously, Los Blancos had failed eight times.

But this season, it’s the “unreal” Madrid: after the epic reversal of the situation against Paris Saint-Germain in 8^are final (1-0, 3-1), the incredible comeback against Chelsea in the quarterfinals (1-3, 2-3 ap), and the odyssey of the first leg in Manchester a week ago (4-3) , the team led by Carlo Ancelotti has added a new page to its epic notebook for the 2021-2022 continental season.

Four days after becoming the first coach to win the five major European football championships, Ancelotti, the man who led Real to the “Decima”, his tenth C1, in 2014, can also become the first technician of the history to win a fourth Champions League.

Guardiola, still missed

For Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, the disillusion is immense: the Catalan technician, hated in Madrid, is still chasing a new crown in the Champions League after the two titles gleaned with Barça in 2009 and 2011, and will not offer a second rank final at Skyblues, after that lost last year against Chelsea (1-0).

“We missed a little thing in the first half, we failed to give continuity. And in the second half, when we were better, we managed to score… And then there were those two minutes,” Guardiola breathed after the match.

And the Citizen will still have to wait to lift the first “Big Ears Cup” in their history.

Long impervious to Spanish attacks, and even cheered up by Mahrez’s goal and the huge double chance of 87^andwith a ball saved on his line by Ferland Mendy and a strike from Phil Foden which shaved the right upright of Thibaut Courtois, the Citizen gave in at the worst time.

Conversely, Rodrygo’s double revived the people of Madrid, carried once again by their captain Karim Benzema, author of a breathtaking season.

In the final, the French centre-forward will face his main competitor for the Ballon d’Or, Sadio Mané. But the whole planet is almost already won over to the cause of the Benzema version 2021-2022, the best of his career, which, at 34, has only one step left to climb to offer his 14^and continental crown to the eternal Real Madrid.