Bastian Schweinsteiger went one way, Iker Casillas went the
other, the ball flew into the net and 85,000 Madridistas fell silent as a
nun at Sunday mass.
With that, it was over.
After a
break-neck first half full of starts and stops and goals and misses, a
tense and tight second half that felt more like a battle of nerves than
wits and 30 grueling minutes of iron-man extra time, it came down to
this.
A game of truth or dare.
The truth, of course, being
that Germans never lose penalty shootouts—almost to the point of
national pride—and not even when it's Jose Mourinho making the dare.
To be sure, it was quite a dare that Mourinho's Madrid threw down.
Inside 14 minutes, Los Blancos led, 2-0, behind two
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] strikes. The first owed plenty to a dodgy penalty decision, and the
second owed more to a defensive lapse by Bayern's Philipp Lahm—but as
statements go, this one was powerful.
Unlike Lionel Messi before
him, Ronaldo had stepped up in the semifinal second leg, filled the gap
and scored when it really mattered. Because of that, Real had one foot
in next month's final.
But, it wasn't there long. Thirteen minutes
after Ronaldo's second, Arjen Robben scored the only goal Bayern would
need, a pinpoint penalty kick just far enough to his left that
Casillas—who guessed correctly—could only help the ball into the Madrid
net.
For the rest of the half, the match went vintage. Both teams
emptied their catalogs, and the results were accordingly rich: skill,
pace, emotion, riveting twists and misses, and drama, drama, drama and
more drama.
As B/R's Dan Levy wrote on Twitter, the first half was
so good that it could have served as an excellent introduction to any
of your soccer-ambivalent friends.
In fairness, the tape should have ended there, at least until the penalty shootout.
The match itself ended in a 2-1 win for
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
To be honest, not a lot happened after halftime. Neither team wanted to
make a fatal mistake, and the fact that only one substitute appeared
before extra time confirmed that both were playing it safe.
But
that 2-1 win for Real secured only a 3-3 aggregate draw. And by the
arrival of extra time, fatigue had started to show—affecting Real more
than Bayern—and, tellingly, on the face of Real's superstar.
After
Ronaldo's weariness became plain, you had to wonder what kind of toll
the weekend's "El Clasico" triumph over Barcelona had taken on Real.
Still, with Mourinho working the controls, Madrid had a chance.
The
Portuguese manager was vying for his third Champions League title with
his third different team. In his already glorious European career,
Mourinho has engineered more than a few miraculous escapes.
But, in this season of Champions League destiny (
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in the final?) and with the presence of a German team in the penalty
shootout (again, national pride), only one team was going to advance to
Munich.
It was the team from Munich, of course. Fate wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
Now,
Bayern will host Chelsea in a final that few probably wanted and fewer
probably predicted. But considering the cosmic level of drama both
finalists conjured in the semifinals, maybe it's the final we needed
~~~~~~~~
Best team Won this time Bettina ,
Borussia Mönchengladbach should have "that" time
