Kiev: Do not let that lily white shirt fool you. There are dark arts; dirty arts, also, in those Real Madrid colours and not least with their captain, Sergio Ramos — a captain, leader, legend not afraid to bend the rules or bend the arm of an opponent as he did close to half-an-hour into this Champions League final to dramatically end the involvement of Mohammad Salah.
Ramos pinned him and there were fears Salah dislocated his shoulder. It is a competition that Ramos said Real hit the “reset” button for every year to drive them on despite their extraordinary record of success and he did it here with his challenge on Salah. Ramos reset the game.
As Salah hit the turf, there was a collective intake of breathe, a sense that the shape of this contest might be horribly altered. The forward got back up — the Liverpool fans cheered their relief having sang his song about running down the wing — but then he crumpled to the turf soon after, unable to continue.
Tears streamed down Salah’s face and it was a crying shame. Cristiano Ronaldo, who had flicked Salah a confrontational glance in the tunnel as the teams prepared to come out, ruffled his hair in sympathy and maybe recollection of having gone off injured himself in the final of Euro 2016.
But the damage was done and there was surely a brutal cynicism in the way Ramos had brought Salah down having won the ball, hooking his arm also to ensure that he fell on him, fully taking the impact. Salah landed awkwardly, and heavily, and obviously painfully, on his left shoulder.
It was a surprise he was even able to continue at first but it was a fleeting vain attempt and while the Liverpool supporters attempted to digest that, there will have been millions back home in his native Egypt fearing he will be out of the World Cup.
Maybe, Ramos did not mean to hurt Salah and he went over to apologise. But he certainly knew what he was doing in pulling him down like that and so the damage was done.
“My shoulder,” Salah said to the Liverpool physios and Real seemed to use it as a trigger as they immediately picked up the pace and the momentum switched. Maybe it was, with Ramos, the mark of a ruthlessly driven professional who wants to succeed because, for all of Ronaldo’s brilliance, no one quite represents Real quite like their club captain, who has been with them for 13 years, and who scored the goal to finally win them that fabled tenth European Cup.
It is said that Real always find a way, that they have that big game experience to get themselves through and that they come alive in the Champions League. There is that belief, that arrogance and that ruthlessness, and here it was.
Real played unconvincingly to reach this final but they beat Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Bayern Munich away from home to do so.
They have won time and again in those big games against big teams despite not appearing to deserve it. They have three of the last four Champions Leagues going into this final and yet have been champions in Spain only once during that time.
This is a team that finished a distant third in La Liga, 17 points behind Barcelona, and suffered defeats against the likes of Espanyol, Real Betis and Girona in their domestic campaign.
They conceded 44 goals as well - more than eighth-place Getafe or Espanyol, who finished 11th, conceded.
And yet in Madrid, they said Zidane’s biggest job this week has been to keep overconfidence in check, something that was not helped when one of his predecessors, Vicente del Bosque, predicted a 4-1 stroll while there were — unofficial — stalls outside the Bernabeu selling T-shirts celebrating Real’s 2018 Champions League win.
In a sign of the incredible familiarity with which Real address this competition, they were even able to name the exact same starting eleven who took to the field in Cardiff for last season’s final. Arrogance? Overconfidence? That team had 46 Champions League winners medals between them — half the squad went into this final having won it three times already — while not one single member of Liverpool’s squad had played even a minute of a Champions League final before.
Real had that swagger but they had to nobble Salah to assert it with Ramos then drawing a yellow card for Sadio Mane, soon after the Spaniards had scored, claiming he had been struck in the face. Ramos claimed it again — and was rightly ignored — as Dejan Lovren powered the header from which Mane equalised.
It roused Liverpool, it brought them back to life but they were soon up against it again.
