Real need Champions League triumph to salvage poor season

MADRID/BERLIN — In suffocating August heat at the start of the season Real Madrid stayed ice cool to crush Barcelona 5-1 on aggregate in the Spanish Super Cup.

It was a show of force from Spain’s dominant side, the double winners exerting their power over Barcelona and leaving their arch-rivals on the verge of crisis.

New Barca coach Ernesto Valverde looked on helplessly as Brazilian forward Neymar joined Paris St Germain and Real looked unstoppable.

“It’s the first time we’ve felt Madrid are superior,” Barca defender Gerard Pique said after the game.

But as the months passed, it became clear that Real were not capable of defending their league title as Barcelona surged clear at the top of the standings.

Madrid’s league hopes lay in tatters by December, the Catalans raiding the Santiago Bernabeu with a 3-0 win in the Christmas Clasico, and moving 14 points of Zinedine Zidane’s team.

Real were dumped out of the King’s Cup in January on away goals by unheralded Leganes and Barcelona went on to win that trophy for the fourth season in a row.

That was the first step towards a near-certain double for Barcelona, who need one point in their remaining five games to wrest the title back from Real.

Real will ease the pain by retaining their Champions League title, their only hope of salvaging a disappointing season.

They face Bayern Munich in the semifinals as they bid to win it for a third season running, having last season become the first side to retain the trophy by beating Juventus in the final.

The German champions, however, are desperate for revenge after they were eliminated 6-3 on aggregate at the quarter-final stage by Zidane’s side last season in controversial circumstances.

“You need a better referee for a quarter-final,” complained then Bayern coach Carlo Ancelotti after his team had two men sent off over the two legs and Real scored goals from offside positions.

“We’re working hard and, if we’ve done it twice, why wouldn’t we go for that third consecutive Champions League?,” Real defender Dani Carvajal said ahead of Wednesday’s first leg in Munich.

It would not be the first time Real’s season has been salvaged by a European triumph.

In 2016 they lifted the trophy after Barcelona won the double and in 1998 they triumphed after finishing fifth in La Liga.

These star-studded teams are hardly strangers to the latter stages of Europe’s premier tournament and there are four men who know how it feels to represent both the white of Real and the red of Bayern. 

Here we look at their experiences at both clubs.

Heynckes secured a place in the hearts of Real Madrid fans by leading Los Blancos to their seventh European Cup in 1998, and their first in 32 years, with a 1-0 victory over a Juventus side that included Zinedine Zidane. 

Fifteen years later, Heynckes was a European champion again as coach of Bayern, who also won the Bundesliga and the German Cup under his stewardship that season. 

It remains Bayern’s only treble in the club’s history, although Heynckes could still repeat the feat this term, before he retires — for a second time — in the close season. 

Robben moved to Real from Chelsea as one of the deadliest attackers in the world, but his time in the Spanish capital is remembered more for the injuries he accumulated than the goals. 

After scoring only 11 times in 50 league games for Real, he found his rhythm again at Bayern, whom he joined in 2009. 

The Dutchman has won seven Bundesliga titles with the German giants, as well as the Champions League in 2013, and recently followed Franck Ribery in signing a contract extension until 2019. 

Kroos began in Bayern’s youth set-up as a teenager and was the youngest player to make his debut for the club when the German played aged 17. 

He went on to win three Bundesliga titles and the Champions League at Bayern, but a contract dispute in 2014 opened the door to a surprise switch to Real.