There can be no questions about the credibility of this years’ Champions League finalists. With 66 league titles and 25 European trophies between them, Real Madrid and Juventus, the Vikingos of Spain and the Vecchia Signora of Italy, are two of the Europe’s most decorated sides.
Each of them added yet another domestic title to their expansive trophy cabinets this season, fending off the respective challenges of Barcelona and Roma. In Cardiff on June 3rd, one of these champions will complete the herculean task of conquering both their domestic league and the most famous league on the continent.
For Juventus’s impeccably efficient and experienced team it could be their first since 1996 when Marcelo Lippi’s side beat Ajax 4-2 on penalties. Chelsea manager Antonio Conte was one of the medal winners that day.
Of course for Real Madrid’s players, the gleam of the Champions League trophy is one they have become familiar with in recent years, having won the prize in 2014 and again last year in 2016. Should Real be the first team in history to defend the title, it will be manager Zinedine Zidane’s second time thrusting it into the air.
As for the players, some have been here before. Others are yet to compete in the biggest final in club football but will be looking towards it as a platform for future greatness. Below are the individuals Real Madrid and Juventus will be relying on the most come next Saturday.
#5 Dani Alves
Juventus director Giuseppe Marotta one claimed that his best piece of transfer business was signing Andrea Pirlo as a free agent. Should his team be victorious on Saturday evening, it’s likely that he’ll have changed his mind. Since joining the Turin outfit on a free from Barcelona last summer Dani Alves has been a revelation, showing no signs of decline from the tremendously high levels he hit during his eight-year spell at the Camp Nou.
Even a sophisticated squad like Juventus need experience, and the 34-year-old was literally brought into the side to ‘teach’ them how to win the Champions League. His lessons are going well. Alves provided two monstrous performances in the semi-finals against Monaco.
Perhaps the most nimble attacking force in the competition, the Frenchmen may have targeted Juventus’ ageing right-hand side as an area to exploit but it was the Brazilian, still so technically gifted, still able to gazelle up and down the touchline with fuel left to spare, who put Leonardo Jardim’s side to the sword. Having created both goals in Juventus’s 2-0 win in the first leg, it was his sublime volley from the edge of the area that sealed the Italian’s place in the final just a week later. ‘Let this be remembered as the semi-final of Dani Alves’ wrote The Times in the United Kingdom. ‘Did you see him?’ asked a flabbergasted Max Allegri at the final whistle.
In this year’s competition, only strikers Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala have more goals than his three and no player in Juventus squad has created more chances than Alves. Heading into his third Champions League final – the most of any player in the current Juventus squad – Alves will again be tasked with leading his side into battle.
#4 Marcelo
Like his Brazilian compatriot, Real Madrid's Marcelo is another who has redefined the role of the full-back. On Saturday evening it is likely that the 29-year-old will cross paths with his friend Alves while surging into Juventus territory, aiming to add to the 20 chances he has already created for his team in the year’s tournament. Only Toni Kroos has created more, but few would argue that it is the left-back who has been Los Blanco’s most influential player on the road to Cardiff.
Marcelo lives for the big games. He assisted in the Clasico this term and was among the goalscorers in Real Madrid’s 3-1 European final win over Atletico three years ago. He has been involved in more wins than any foreign player in Real Madrid’s history and has collected 14 trophies with the Spanish giants, including two Champions League and four La Liga titles. Arguably the best left-back of all time Roberto Carlos thinks he’s the best in his position. One of the game’s best right-backs Cafu agrees. He’s certainly a crucial member of Real Madrid’s squad.
As one journalist reminded Marcelo at Madrid’s media day on Tuesday, it will be his job to stop his national teammate Alves as Zidane’s side look to seal their 12th Champions League trophy. But, equally, on Alves’s mind will be the threat of Marcelo; the most dangerous left-back in world football.
#3 Paulo Dybala
Paulo Dybala recently attributed his rise to the top of European football to his obsession with the film ‘Gladiator’. The Argentine, however, certainly goes about his business with more grace than Maximus. In this Juventus side packed with grit, experience and superb tactical awareness, Dybala is the anomaly.
With the ability to whip the ball into the back of the net from anywhere in the vicinity of the 18-yard-box with that wand of a left foot, Dybala has been given license to float impishly in the final third by his manager just behind Gonzalo Higuain.
This will be the 23-year-old’s first European final but the Argentine will not be overawed by the occasion. His goals helped Juventus to a famous quarter-final victory over Barcelona for whom Lionel Messi, a player Dybala has been likened to countless times, plays for. While many young players would feel obliged to suck up to the great man, Dybala is keen to distance himself from the six-time Ballon d’Or winner, stating in the past that ‘Messi is Messi. I’m Paulo’.
And since completing a £28million move from Palermo in 2015, Dybala has gone about establishing himself as his own man admirably. He has scored 30 goals for the 32-time Scudetto winners since the transfer and only Higuain has more Champions League goals this season. In what is likely to be a chess-like battle between Juventus and Real Madrid, Dybala could prove to be the flash of magic that kicks the game into life.
#2 Cristiano Ronaldo
No ordinary player scores consecutive hat-tricks in Champions League quarter and semi-finals. Cristiano Ronaldo is no ordinary player. In fact, he has more goals (50) in the Champions League knockout stages than any other player and his six goals against Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid proved any doubters that the Portuguese is still operating at the very highest level.
Now 32, Ronaldo has adapted his game to the physiological changes in his body in a mature fashion. Having started out as a wide-man, Ronaldo now plays more centrally for Zinedine Zidane’s side where physical speed is not as important. Mentally though, Ronaldo remains faster than anyone. He has the anticipation, the scent for goals, and the physique to out-muscle his opponents. Those attributes make him the best goalscorer in European football, perhaps the best there’s ever been.
On Saturday he will meet Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci – the two Italian’s who sit in the middle of arguably the best defence in Europe at present. Before Kylian M’Bappe’s goal in the second-leg of the semi-final Max Allegri’s side had conceded only two goals in the competition, and, impressively, none of those were scored by Barcelona’s Lionel Messi.
Keeping out two-time European title winner Ronaldo, however, may prove to be a much trickier task, especially with a fifth Ballon d’Or essentially secured should Ronaldo steer his side to victory. This match-up between Europe’s meanest defence and it’s most lethal marksman should make for a compelling finale.
#1 Gianluigi Buffon
Eight Scudettos. One World Cup. One Uefa Cup. Four Italian Cups. The missing piece for Europe’s most decorated goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon is the Champions League, and his quest for glory in the competition makes Juventus the neutral’s choice for this final.
For the 39-year-old who will become the tournament’s oldest winner should Juventus get past Real Madrid it almost certainly will be his last chance, but the Italian never gave up hope on finally lifting the trophy. “After the defeat to Barcelona in the final, two years ago, many people thought I would never have another chance, but I always believed that, if we worked hard, I would get another opportunity – and this time we must make it count,” Buffon is quoted as saying in the Daily Mirror.
The experienced goalkeeper who remains the world’s most expensive stopper commands respect from his fellow professionals. He is a likeable character, never shy of issuing opponents with words of encouragement even in such competitive surroundings, and a man who, on the field at least, always conducts himself professionally.
“I would like to see Buffon win the Champions League,” said Barcelona legend Xavi in a recent interview. “Winning the Champions League would be a crowning moment in Buffon’s career”. There are plenty who agree with him.
But to ensure that happens Buffon must give the performance of his career to deny Ronaldo and Real Madrid yet another party with the Champions League trophy. Cardiff awaits.
