Real Madrid are inevitable. Sometimes football can feel futile and rarely more so than when you face the club that rightly consider this competition their own. It doesn’t matter what you do, you’re doomed. However well you play, however brave you are and however many chances you make, somehow, you know. This is just what they do. They faced a shot for each of the 14 European Cups that stand at the Santiago Bernabéu yet still won the first leg, Brahim Díaz getting the only goal with a combination of faith, fortune and fantasy, and there were nerves again in the second but they escaped into the quarter-final.
Just. They had lived on edge, Dani Olmo hitting the bar in the final minute, but they lived another day. Sometimes it feels like they like it this way. Jude Bellingham took them there, striding up the pitch to set up Vinícius Júnior to score the goal that ultimately saw them through. They had suffered, and they had conceded, forced to hold on in those final, frightening minutes, but they had made it. Leipzig could hardly have done more – except score – but there was no comeback.
Proof there was hope for Leipzig came from the first leg when, Marco Rose said, his team had competed with Madrid as equals. If anything that was actually an understatement: that night Andriy Lunin made nine saves, equalling Madrid’s record in this competition, and Leipzig were keen to force him into action here. Their first corner was won within five minutes and their first five – yes, five – chances were made inside 15.
The first of those, admittedly, was eventually pulled back for offside and, as Benjamin Sesko went clean through, you sensed that he knew it, something doubtful in his stride and deficient in his finish, the flag inevitably going up once the move had played out. Lunin saved that one just in case, but it was a warning, and soon after Sesko slotted the ball to Loïs Openda, with space opening in front of him on the edge of the area in behind Madrid’s midfield. The shot was scuffed and might also have been the wrong decision: Olmo was standing free alongside him, unmarked and shouting for the ball.
That was followed by a Willi Orban header wide and then another clear opportunity. It started with wonderful footwork from Olmo, Leipzig cutting through Madrid again, and ended with Openda firing wide. With Xavi Simons floating between the forwards and the midfield, connecting everything, and the full-backs joining as often as they could, Leipzig were having the better of the game. Madrid, playing with Bellingham and Fede Valverde in the forward line, sought “energy” and quick transitions” Ancelotti said, but there was no sign of them.
Only once did they threaten to get in, when Valverde slipped the ball to Bellingham, whose shot was blocked. At the other end, a few hearts leapt when Toni Kroos stepped away from a challenge inside his area; his wasn’t one of them, but the concern continued. Simons saw one shot deflected just wide and another palmed away by Lunin. Then, from a corner, Openda took the ball on his chest and thumped just past the post. There were whistles around the arena, and they were getting ever more insistent.
Ancelotti reacted by removing Eduardo Camavinga and bringing Rodrygo on at the break, but the second half started with Openda escaping up the left and going around Lunin only to find the keeper recovering to dive at his feet. Vinícius got a yellow card that might have been red when he pushed Orban over – twice. Benjamin Henrichs then wasted the chance to provide a telling ball deep inside Madrid’s area and, a couple of minutes later, headed over.
Vinícius escaped for the first time on the hour, the ball coming to Bellingham whose shot was blocked, before Rodrygo raced in on the right and forced a sharp save from Peter Gulacsi. Madrid, at last, were alive. Only Madrid are always alive. And then it came. Of course it did. A Leipzig attack broke down and there was Bellingham striding away. He ran all the way to the other area and slipped the ball in to Vinícius, who flashed in the finish.
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When Antonio Rüdiger dived to prevent Olmo’s shot going in straight after, it seemed cruel, almost taunting, but almost immediately Leipzig found a belated way through, Orban diving to head an equaliser.
Leipzig might have had the lead and drawn level on aggregate when Orban headed David Raum’s delivery back across goal for Openda, but Openda’s attempt hit Dani Carvajal. Sesko then forced a save from Lunin. The momentum was theirs again, and it was building. And yet, this is Real Madrid.
